Happy New Year from Ho Chi Minh City!

hey kids! This will be my last post for 2011! I like to look at the end of the year and reflect on how I grew as a person, what changes were made to my life, what went well, what changes are ongoing and where changes are still needed. It's also a wonderful opportunity to be thankful for what I have achieved and where life has taken me. I hope you do the same and are as excited for what 2012 will bring you as I am! :)

In my last post we were in Nha Trang and preparing to leave for HCMC. On our last day in Nha Trang we hung out and saw the Po Nagar Tower. This tower was built between the 7th and 12th century and is named for a goddess of local origin who is said to have created the earth, eaglewood, and rice. The temple was built during the Hindu period of Champa; the image of the goddess takes the form of Uma, wife of Siva. From there we took an overnight train to Ho Chi Minh City. It was SO much better than the bus! We had a room with four beds in it and even though I didn't have a great sleep, it wasn't interrupted by random stops in the middle of the night, and I at least didn't have to put scented lip balm under my nose to lessen the severity of the stench of urine coming from the toilet. After an adventure to find our hotel, which is in a side alley off a side alley, we scoped out an amazing bakery right across the street from our hotel (so much for healthy eating...this place is a goldmine of delicious baked treats!) and checked out the Ben Thanh market, which is pretty huge! We walked away with some random stuff. I bought a cheezy souvenir shirt and a super cute purse. We also checked out a culinary festival, tried some treats and walked around HCMC.

Nevermind NYC; HCMC is the place to be for NYE! The city is beautiful decorated with flower lights on a lot of the streets; the main street has light decorations everywhere. We take it as a good sign of the year to come that 2012 is the year of the dragon for Chinese New Year and we are in Vietnam where the dragon is a huge part of architecture, symbolism and culture. To Vietnamese people, the dragon brings rain, essential for agriculture. It represents the emperor, the prosperity and power of the nation. The Vietnamese dragon is the symbol of yang, representing the universe, life, existence, and growth.

We had a bit of an adventure trying to find the pagodas (and trying to find someone to speak enough English to direct us to see the pagodas!), but we found them. They were beautiful! Everywhere, but especially the roofs, are amazing. Figures and dragons are carved everywhere and like snowflakes, no two pagodas are the same. You could spend hours just describing the amount of detail in the carvings. From there we met up for lunch with my good friend Rheanne from my grad school days. We even found an American cupcake store. Yes, I may be going to hell after all of the junk food that I have eaten on this trip. It is a new year tomorrow though and I know it's just a matter of time before I am back to eating healthy when I get home.

Tonight we are all meeting up for dinner and likely a club after. It's going to be a rough morning tomorrow as we leave for Thailand really early but it'll be worth it to spend a great evening with friends to welcome in the new year before heading off for the final leg of our journey.

We wish you an amazing end to 2011 and hope that 2012 brings you everything that you asked for, and more! :)






From top (left to right): My Son temple in Hoi An; Po Nagar temple in Nha Trang; Yosha with a great view of Nha Trang in the background; our "room" in the train (it's no Hogwarts train but it's about as close as you can get I reckon!); the countdown to the new year in HCMC - if you look closely, you can see two bright dots in Vietnam. I imagine those are for Hanoi and HCMC; me near a hokey New Year sign; Yosha with the beautiful lights on the street; me having my absolute favourite meal: Vietnamese sandwich on the street! For all the French did a lot of awful things to the Vietnamese, the one good thing that they brought was absolutely amazing crusty bread!

Temples, shopping, eels and sardines!

hey guys! Here we are in not too sunny but at least not raining Nha Trang! We arrived this morning around 6 a.m. after a brutal 12 hour bus ride from Hoi An. Travel agents are great at recommending the overnight sleeper bus, a bus crammed with seats that sort of recline. Unfortunately, they don't tell you that they overload the bus every time and pick up locals along the way, with some people who have to sleep on the floor. Sometimes, like last night, one of the locals kicks you out of your seat even though there are no assigned seats. So I ended up squished like a sardine in the space of about a tiny double bed between a swede who got kicked out of his seat and an american. we survived though, but on the way we were woken up around midnight for food. Nothing too interesting, though we did see a lot of snakes, seahorses and squids in jars of rice wine. apparently it's good for your health. I would rather eat salad thank-you-very-much.
Speaking of food, Yosha has been working hard to update her blog on more of our food adventures.

So to backtrack, on Boxing Day while you guys were out scooping up amazing bargains, we toured around the My Son (pronounced "mee son", which means "beautiful mountain") temples. My Son is a cluster of abandoned and partially ruined Hindu temples constructed between the 4th and the 14th century AD by the kings of Champa. Unfortunately a lot of it got bombed by the Americans in during the Vietnam War from 1955 to 1975. I thought the temples were cool, but it's really hard to beat the Angkor Temples in Cambodia! The Hindu influence was interesting though.

From there we returned to the tailor and shoe maker to finalize our shoes and clothes. So I now have a couple from-scratch bowties, a full suit so I am all grown up and workout shorts. I also asked them to adjust the Chinese dress that I bought in Beijing so that fits well. During the day there may have been more shopping and junk eating as well ;) I did try eels though! that was a random pick of the day of eels sautéed in lemongrass and chili. It was surprisingly tasty, minus the chunk of eel spine in each piece though.

On the 27th we walked around Old Town Hoi An, where we saw the Japanese bridge. Built sometime in the early 1600s, the Hoi An Japanese Bridge is a symbol of the town and a beautiful reminder of a time long ago, when Hoi An was an important trading port for Chinese, Dutch, Indian, and Japanese merchants up until the 17th century.

Today so far at 4 p.m. we have just being touring around, napping, eating fruit from the market (Yosha has introduced me to so many wonderful fruits! Today we tried jack fruit and lychee. Both very tasty!) and praying for sunshine. I don't think we will get much sun until Saigon though.

A few random observations about Vietnam...

- their hand gesture for "come here", like if they are personally calling you, is close to what we would use for "goodbye", kind of like the "ta ta" hand gesture where you keep your palm parallel to the ground and flap your wrist.
- ironically, in a country of 40 million motorbikes where traffic laws are only loosely obeyed and everything moves so quickly, the key to survival when crossing the crazy streets is to take your time. The slower you move, the easier it is for motorbikes to swerve around you. Just watch out for cars, because they don't done move too good ;)
- because I am sure you are curious! Toilets here are the exact same as back home, except that there is often the option for a half-flush vs. a full-flush, and you aren't supposed to put anything down the toilet including toilet paper so bins are provided. There have been a few squatters along the way but I think they have adapted well to tourism!

Anyways, those are my thoughts for the moment! We leave tomorrow night by overnight train for Saigon to hang out in Saigon for NYE, then off to Thailand until we leave on the 14th. I heard that you guys in Ottawa are going to get a good dumping of snow. Drive carefully!

M xoxo



Some random photos for you!

Top to bottom, left to right: an old house in Hoi An; the inside of the top row in a sleeper bus - sometimes, like what happened last night, you sleep in a spot where there is an extra bed in between and you get super crammed in between two strangers; the Japanese covered bridge in Hoi An; trying eels for the first time; my new super cool footwear; and weird stuff in jars at a random bus stop.

Merry Christmas from Hoi An!

(clockwise from left: church in Hoi An; market in Hue; cooking class in Hue; market in Hue)

hey kids! Merry Merry Christmas from Hoi An! :) I hope that Santa Claus has been good to you. We are twelve hours ahead of most of ayou so Christmas has came and gone for us but it was great!

Yesterday we took a cooking class in Hue before leaving for Hoi An, which is about 4 hours of slow driving from Hue. It was really cool! For $15 we had a semi-private class with a Vietnamese woman who took us to the market. We had already been to the market the day before but it was cool to get a personalized tour and to see it all through the eyes of a local. It was saturday as well so it was extra busy with lots of vendors selling everything you can imagine. On the menu for the cooking class was the fried pancake, fresh and fried spring rolls, peanut sauce and bun bo hoe, the spicy beef noodle soup that is popular in Hue (different in noodles and broth from the traditional pho bo (beef noodle soup) that has different herbs and flavour). It was really wacky walking through the meat and fish section...some of the fish and eels were still moving so you know they were fresh. Thankfully neither Yosha nor I is squeemish, but buying meat from a woman who cuts the beef with her hands, then takes the money, then hands you the change, is a little much at times for even me, but when in Rome...so far other than a bit of a cold (I am still in denial about that), we seem to be doing well health-wise! :)

We arrived in Hoi An last night. Of all of the places that we have visited so far in Vietnam, Hoi An is by far the most amazing. The architecture is incredible; the buildings are absolutely beautiful. After checking into a random hotel (off a tip from a local at the bus station...who needs to book ahead?!), we walked around the town and had some tasty dinner (cao lau; noodles with sliced pork, deep fried croutons and herbs is the local dish and it's delicious!), drinks and snacks. Deep-fried banana is my snack of choice for the moment!

After dinner we walked around town. While most Vietnamese will probably consider themselves Buddhist, Christmas seems to be a really big deal. Walking around town there were tons of vendors selling helium-filled Santa Claus balloons; some stores were playing Christmas music; many stores, restaurants and hotels have lit-up Christmas trees, "Merry Christmas" signs and various reindeer, Santa and snowflake stuff out front. So we haven't forgotten it's Christmas! I have been wearing a mega dorky elf hat I bought off a lady for a $1 since last night. It makes me feel festive :)

This morning after a lazy start (maybe our first in ten days of travelling!), we got some shoes and clothes made. OMG I am soooooo excited for the stuff that I bought! There are probably close to 200 tailors and shoe makers in the entire city. I got two pairs of funky shoes made (work friends watch out!) and a pair of winter boots for $100. I also got a grown-up suit jacket, skirt, pants, as well as workout shorts made for $145. I am not going to think about how I am going to bring this home...but it'll be worth it because it's amazing and totally fitted to me! I feel like a queen!

The weather in Hoi An has been nicer than in Hue. While it was pouring rain this morning when we left our hotel it stopped and it's a lot more comfortable!

Tomorrow we leave for My Son temples. I am really excited!

While it's different not being around family and friends (except for my dearest Yosha of course!), this is probably the best gift that I could have given myself. There is something about travelling that makes everything else seem less important. While I think that we will always have stuff to pay off, I think that to deny yourself the joy, beauty and adventure of travelling is to miss out on a huge chunk of your personal growth. To quote St-Augustine, "the world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page". So get your butt out there and take that big trip that you have always wanted to take! :)

So Merry Christmas dear friends and family! And thanks for following along! More stories from the road to come!

Temples, street food and rain!

hello friends! :)
After exploring the market in Hue yesterday and trying some delicious new fruit that Yosha grew up on in Sri Lanka, it was a bit of a lazy day.

Today we had a fun-filled day on a city tour of Hue, where we checked out the citadel, which was built in around 1805 (and a lot of it destroyed during the American War in 1968); the Phu Mong Garden House Village, a private garden; the Thien Mu pagoda, which was built over 400 years ago; and three tombs: the minh mang tomb, the tu duc tomb and the khai dinh tomb. These tombs were the final resting places for a number of emperors who lived around the 19th and 20th century. I thought that the Khai Dinh tombs were the absolute coolest because they had an awesome gothic feeling to them.

From there we took a dragon boating tour along the perfume river and walked about in the rain in an attempt to find this Japanese restaurant that closed down. We ended up having dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant. It was probably our first failed food event...we had prawns, squid, rice and some veggies. The squid looked really raw and not sugar coated like we have back home! As much as I came into this trip wanting to eat some hardcore stuff I think it's better in theory than in practice...and squid isn't nearly as hardcore as you can get for food in Asia! We did manage to find some amazing mille-feuilles dessert at a French bakery called La Boulangerie française which trains underpriviledged youth in Vietnam to become bakers and chefs in fancy hotels and restaurants in Vietnam. So....good for me, good for Vietnam, everyone wins!

Generally our food experiences in Vietnam (for lunch and dinner, anyways) are the following: we show up at some food cooking place on the street, pull up some kiddie chairs, and they make us food. it usually involves rice and meat of some kind. we don't always know what we are eating, but it's always delicious and cheap! like yesterday in the market we had rice, noodles, green veggies of some kind, some fish and some kind of meat, maybe chicken...for $1. The beer in Hue is especially cheap. I am a huge fan of their Huda beer. A big bottle of it at the café across the street is less than $0.50. The Dutch alarm is on full-time here! :)

The weather in Hue has been the same since we got here yesterday morning...cold, damp, wet, dreary...but at least we can walk around in light jackets and sandals!

Some random photos for your viewing pleasure. Clockwise from the top left: fruit in the market - Yosha has introduced me to rabutan, mangosteen, sugar apple, and we picked up some dragon fruit too. (this will hopefully slow down the onset of scurvy, which is bound to happen on our current diets of meat, more meat, rice, noodles, and deep fried magic like deep fried bananas that we picked up along the way today!); one of the ladies serving us delicious street food; in front of the Thien Mu pagoda; and a photo of the Khai Dinh tomb.

Tomorrow morning we are taking a cooking class, and from there we are off to Hoi An for Christmas. I am really looking forward to having clothes made in Hoi An and to do some shopping! I likely won't post until Christmas day so I hope that Santa Claus is good to you! :)

M xoxo

Hello from Hue!

hey guys!

Here we are in Hue (pronouned "hway") after a 14 hour sleeper bus ride from Hanoi. The ride itself was ok though bumpy, and I didn't sleep well (as always...I am not a great car or plane sleeper!). I did manage to come across probably the smelliest bathroom though at a gas station on our way (OK gas stations are not the best place to judge a bathroom...). it was a weird half-wall with a ledge and a drop where you could do what you needed to do. I thought I was going to throw up in my mouth. Anyways, on to more positive things! The hotel we are at is great, clean, has an amazing hot shower and is a good deal at $12 for a room. Even better considering tht we spent about the same amount for a dorm bed in a ten-person room in Hanoi!

Yesterday after some lovely pho (beef noodle soup...I could eat it allllllll day!) for breakfast we went with our super fun friend Neil to check out Ho Chih Minh's mausoleum in Hanoi. Hồ Chí Minh was prime minister (1945–1955) and president (1945–1969) of North Vietnam. "Uncle Ho"s body was embalmed at the mausoleum despite his wishes to be cremated. they did a good job though he looked pretty artificial. He was in a glass case and the entire area was well protected with guards. From there, we walked the grounds and visited Ho Chih Minh's house where he chose to live instead of living in the presidential palace because he was apparently a humble man. We later walked to the temple of literature, which was constructed in 1070 to honour Confucius and later to honour the high scholars of Vietnam.

We went on an adventure looking for this one place that has been serving the same delicious monkfish dish cooked in butter with veggies and herbs for over a century. This restaurant only has one dish. We went to one place, which had the same name but served different dishes, and it seemed pretty expensive...so we found another place across the street that was the right place. After eating our meal we expended an unneccesary amount of brain power figuring out how much each owed. I don't know if the server/owner (?) got sick of us but she basically gave us back the money so our delicious meal was free. It was odd. We took our hard earned money and went to a French café for cake and treats. I am throwing my healthy diet out the window and totally embracing the fact that I am on holidays and will eat to the point of discomfort until I get back to being more structured with diet and exercise when we go back home.

We finished off the day checking out a water puppet show. Water puppetry is a unique art which has it origin in the delta of the Red river in the tenth century. Modern, water puppetry is performed in a pool of water with the water surface being the stage. The puppeteers stand behind a screen and control the puppets using long bamboo rods and string mechanism hidden beneath the water surface. The puppets are carved out of wood and often weigh up to 15 kg. The theme of the skits is rural and has a strong reference to Vietnamese folklore.

We are in Hue for a couple of days; today likely touring around, tomorrow probably a day tour of tombs and the citadel, day after maybe a cooking class before heading off to Hoi An likely for Christmas. I hope you are all doing well!

M xoxo

Clockwise from top left: breakfast street food; Ho Chih Minh's mausoleum; in the temple of literature; water puppets; and rocking out with a scholar in the temple of literature.

Having a blast in Hanoi!

hey guys! I hope you have managed to find some time to relax as we approach Christmas! We have been staying out of trouble in Hanoi :) we arrived at our hostel in Hanoi around 2 a.m. from Beijing via Shanghai. After a not super awesome night's sleep we went on a walking tour with our hostel and checked out some food fun. From there we had some pho (beef noodle soup...really good!), checked out the Hoa Lo prison where Vietnamese political protesters were captured by the French around the 19th century. It's always humbling to check out old prisons that are well described and documented because it makes me realize how easy we live in Canada and how well we are treated.

Yosha is updating her blog on more detailed information about the random food we have been eating. Other than breakfast at the hostels we have been eating only local food...with minimal bodily harm ;)

We later had some street food. It's really funny here because people sit at teeny tiny tables on the sidewalk (which is even funnier for me because I feel like my knees are around my ears!)and eat with their friends and family. You can eat at restaurants but it's not as common as street food...and it's really really good! And cheap! A full meal with beer costs like $3 or $4! While I am not a superstar with chopsticks I am glad that I have eaten with them a fair bit before going on this trip because forks and knives are not provided unless asked for.

Yesterday we went on a day trip to Halong Bay. it's absolutely gorgeous there! we really lucked out and had great weather. It was a little foggy so you couldn't see for too far away, but you could see the huge rocks. The fog added to the mystery of it though :) We were on a traditional boat called a junk and even got to check out a cave. When we went back we had some Vietnamese BBQ on the street in teeny chairs and tables, and later went to a street bar and had beer in the street with the locals. So far we are eating well and having a great time! Other than the fact that there is a guy in our hostel that snores. Loudly. All the time. and regardless of how many times I poke him he still snores. If it weren't for the cheap accommodations and great opportunities to meet people, it would almost make me want to splurge on a hotel room. But then my Dutch alarm kicks in and I just suck it up because it's inexpensive ;)

Random observations:

- Traffic in Hanoi is chaos. all the time. With a population of 86 million, there are approximately 40 million motorbikes. I reckon most of them are in Hanoi. To cross the street, you just need to walk slowly into traffic and motorbikes move around you (cars aren't so easy so we look out for those!). it's a great adventure though!

- there are tons of tourists in Hanoi though oddly enough no English on the signs. it's like society is ready for tourists but some of the infrastructure isn't. Most people seem to be able to speak English though so we are getting along well...

- I have been thankful that I have been able to travel a lot and generally once you get a sense of the city it's fairly easy to move around in most cities around the world. Except Hanoi for some reason. The map doesn't really correspond to reality and the street signs change names at almost every block. it's a great way to get lost though and stumble onto something interesting, and we generally feel fairly safe (though I don't know if I would walk alone on the street).

Anyways, here are some photos of the last few days! Today the plan is to meet up with our new friend Neil and check out Ho Chih Minh's mausoleum, more food, maybe a water puppet show, before leaving for Hue on an overnight bus (I will keep my fingers and toes crossed that we don't get a new snorer!)

Hello from the road!

hey guys!

you will have to bear with me because I am a little rusty at this. Somehow I lost everything that I just typed! and it was long! oh well. sorry but this will be the coles notes version in my laziness!

after 30 hours in transit we arrived in Beijing. After some chaos, including arriving after the subway closed (we arrived after midnight, the subway closes at 1030 (!), we found a taxi to bring us to our hostel (a few attempts because we couldn't find a cab driver who spoke English or knew where to take us). here I was thinking that I would be frickin amazing after my one year of Mandarin like ten years ago and my phrasebook! it was a great experience though. Our hostel was down a dark sketchy alley; we found it asking some guy who was peeing on a wall. The guy who answered the door didn't speak English. at all. We managed to get into a room, but only to find it absolutely freezing. I mean, we are Canadian, it can't be that cold, right?! We ended up sharing a bed with a mountain of blankets sleeping in our jackets, mitts, long underwear and two pairs of socks!

The next morning we were moved to a warmer (ish) room. We spent the day walking around and checked out Tianamen Square, the Forbidden City, and got some amazing pictures (on Yosha's camera) from Jiangshan Park close to the Forbidden City.

The next day we went to the Great Wall. Thankfully we were on a section that isn't as popular so it wasn't as touristy. Man was it COLD! it was a great workout too! many parts of where we were on didn't have steps anymore. Between the fresh air from the last few days and the lack of sleep, we slept through part of the Kung Fu show that night, but what we did manage to stay awake for was cool!

I toured around the temple of heaven park while Yosha did some shopping yesterday. The park was great, and full of random activities like tai chi, group aerobics, praying, and tourists checking out the temple of good harvests, one of the popular symbols of China.

We are eating well (moms and dads!) and enjoying the local cuisine. :)

Random observations:

- Even if they don't speak English, people from Beijing will try their hardest to help you. They will also maybe chase you down the street if you drop something. I could have used one of them when I left my Chawel (some group deal thing) on the plane in Chicago (I think!)

- Servers will stand over you the second you sit down at a restaurant while you decide what you want to eat. Plates, bowls and cups are shrink wrapped.

- I don't know if it's because of being desensitized by the Olympics or if it's the culture, but you could be the only white person walking around for miles and they don't really pay attention. it's kinda neat!

- you can feel some of the communist love when you walk around. I couldn't access facebook or my blog...there are police officers everywhere....

that's it for now! I promise to update more often! Don't be shy to post comments! :)

M xoxo

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OMG ASIA!! :)

it's with incredible excitement that I dust off the ol' blog for another adventure! One of my best friends Yosha and I are embarking on a fabulous voyage to China (Beijing), Vietnam and Thailand. When I was in first year of my undergrad I studied intensive Mandarin for a year at eight hours a week. I am really looking forward to practicing some of it while we are in Beijing. I have never been to Vietnam so that should be wacky fun...and I very much enjoyed the islands in Thailand when I was there a few years ago on my world tour! I would like to see more mainland Thailand though so this will be great!

So far, we depart on Wednesday (OMG in like a day and a half!) the 14th and arrive in Beijing on tghe 15th around 9:30 p.m. local time. From there we only have the Great Wall trek planned but I think other destinations include Tiananmen Square, some palaces, maybe some tai chi in a park...and definitely some markets and local food! We are in Beijing till the afternoon of the 18th when we leave for Hanoi. From there nothing else is planned other than leaving to come home on the 14th of January from Bangkok.

Why only three days in China? well...it's not a great time of year to go but it'll be warm elsewhere and going over Christmas was a great way to maximize our time with the three days off as stat holidays. Also, we only have a month and want to see as much as possible!

We look forward to having you follow us on this magical adventure! Feel free to post comments as often as you like. It's always great to read them!

Make sure you check out Yosha's blog as well because she will be chronicling some food! So if you want to make sure that we are eating well (or at least experimenting and trying new things!) she will likely go in more detail than me about that cool stuff!