16 Month Epic Adventures All Must Come to an End

Well, we have checked out of our hotel, eaten our final Pad Thai, and are just waiting to be picked up for the airport. It's going to be a 26 hour adventure going home, from when we leave Bangkok today (on Thursday) to when we arrive in Toronto (on Friday - we go back in time), but since we have taken bus rides that long, this should be a piece of cake!


And now, in no particular order...


The Best of South East Asia

Best Beaches: Malaysia
Best Value Accommodation: Cambodia
Best Food: Thailand
Friendliest People: Cambodia
Best Beer: Black Panther - Cambodia
Best Cities: Hoi An (Vietnam), Dalat (Vietnam), Nong Kiaw (Laos), Kota Bharu (Malaysia), Penang (Malaysia), Kampot (Cambodia)
Best Diving/Snorkelling: Malaysia
Best Dessert: ABC - Malaysia (Craig), Streetside Rotis - Thailand (Andrea)
Cheapest Beer: Vietnam
Craziest Streets to Cross: Hanoi (Vietnam)
Best Market: Chatuchuk Weekend Market (Bangkok, Thailand)



Average Daily Spending

Calculated by adding up how much we spent in a country (food, accommodation, transport, etc.), and dividing it by the number of days we spent there.

India: $36
Malaysia: $42
Thailand: $44 (diving), $38 (no diving)
Laos: $43
Vietnam: $43
Cambodia: $33




Travelling By the Numbers

How much time we spent, in 16 months, in each type of transport. Imagine!

Camel: 18 hours = 0.75 days
Airplane: 73 hours = 3 days
Train: 142 hours = 6 days
Boat: 56 hours = 2.5 days
Bus: 422.5 hours = 17.5 days

That totals 30 days of travel time out of a 16 month trip, not including time spent driving around New Zealand in our campervan!




Types of Transportation We've Taken

- plane
- train
- camel
- bus
- campervan
- boat
- scooter
- human-pulled rickshaw
- cycle rickshaw
- tuk-tuk/motorized rickshaw
- bicycle
- car
- subway
- boat
- elephant
- shared pick-up truck




Odd Food We've Seen (and sometimes tried)

- cricket
- spider
- frog
- dog
- horse
- eel
- scorpion
- beetle
- worm
- maggot
- rat
- bat
- goat
- ant




Memorable Experiences, Country by Country

New Zealand
Standing eye-to-udder with 200+ cows while they pee and poo on us, while trying to milk them. Then wrangling 60 naughty calves in order to ensure each one feeds... twice a day. Climbing various peaks above snow-capped mountains and glacier-fed lakes (Roy's Peak, especially). Sitting on a beach reading when a wild seal popped out of the ocean and challenged us to a game of tag.

India
Riding a camel for three days through the desert near the Pakistan border and sleeping on a blanket in the dunes under the stars. Getting a private cooking lesson from an Indian matriarch, in her kitchen, and then sharing the meal with her and her family. Being (paid) to be extras in a Bollywood movie (No Problem, starring Anil Kapoor and Sushmita Sen).

Malaysia
Snorkelling in the Perehentian Islands with a giant turtle, stingrays, sharks, and a school of giant groupers. Eating the cheapest street food in South East Asia. Arriving in clean, organized Kuala Lumpur after spending three months in India and feeling like we were finally back in a modern country.

Thailand
Visiting the monkey temple in Lopburi where Craig was attacked by three baby monkeys (luckily with no teeth). Riding on an elephant through the jungle in Koh Chang and being allowed to ride on the neck and "steer". Sharing the best curries in Thailand on Koh Phan-gan with new friends, and Full Moon Partying two different times.

Laos
Experiencing a 12-hour, but only 380 km, hilly, windy bus rides and being puked on by kids. Feeling the most off the beaten track, visiting northern towns where no one speaks English. Tubing in Vang Vieng, complete with riverside bars, slides of death, and muddy tug-of-war.

Vietnam
Drinking the cheapest beer in South East Asia (20 cents/glass) with travellers and locals alike at sidewalk bia hois all over the country. Surviving multiple scams (ask Andrea for full details). Finding our favourite cities in South East Asia, with amazing food and friendly people (Hoi An, Dalat).

Cambodia
Crossing the border on the Mekong River from Vietnam in a longtail boat, being greeted by smiling, waving children along the banks. Visiting the Temples of Angkor in Siem Reap and standing in awe of their size and beauty. Feeling like locals in Kampot, where we stayed long enough to know restauranteurs, locals, the dumpling lady, the baker, etc.



And Now...

... we go home. Thanks to everyone who followed this blog; even though the comments weren't always numerous, according to our counter our 87 posts got over 10,000 hits! Our hard drive and camera were on the fritz near the end, so we weren't able to share as many pictures as we'd hoped. Invite us out and we'll bring some pictures (once everything is sorted) and talk your ear off about the last 16 months... if you want!

If you or anyone you know would like any advice about an of the countries we've visited, please don't hesitate to contact us. We're always happy to help!

See you in Canada!

Body Paint & Culture Shock

Last week we made our way back into Thailand via Bangkok, and headed south for two weeks of fun in the sun.

First we went to Had Rin beach, on Koh Phan-gan, for our second Full Moon Party. We met up with our Dutch friends Floris, Marlous, Dolce, and Gabbana, and had four (late) nights of hard-core partying. It's all a blur of fluorescent body paint, beers, foam parties, drinking cocktails out of buckets, fire games, and beach dance parties. Once again the average age of party-goers was around 22. Craig is rocking a three-month-old handlebar moustache (Yosemite Sam-style, now) and Floris had a relatively young one-month-old 'stache. All the young 20-year-old backpackers fell in love with the guys' facial hair - petting them, having pictures taken with them, grooming them, and just all round complimenting them. Needless to say, a fun time was had by all.

Now the two of us are on Koh Samui, enjoying a week of down time. Our bungalow is 100 m from the sea, there is amazing food, we haven't had a day of rain, and Craig still gets at least one compliment a day on his moustache.

Tomorrow we head back to Bangkok (on our last overnight bus!) one last time, where we'll again meet up with Marlous. We have six days to shop 'til we drop, and celebrate Craig's September 7th birthday in a way you only can in Bangkok.


REVERSE CULTURE SHOCK

After living and travelling in Asia for the past nine months or so, we know we're bound to have some major culture shock upon returning to Canada. There are a million and a half differences between the relative order of Canada and the apparent chaos of Asia, never mind the differences between life on the road (or out of a backpack) and a "settled-down" life that includes jobs. Here are some of the things we think will be the biggest shocks:

Food & Drink - We haven't drank water from a tap since leaving New Zealand in January. Having spent time in Asian cities (mostly in India) where you're guaranteed to get sick if you do, it will be weird to be able to do it back home. Also, for nine months we've eaten out, three meals a day, every single day. We immersed ourselves in Asian culture by rarely eating "Western" meals - we've eaten pizza twice, and haven't had peanut butter at all. Cooking our own meals (including real cheese!) according to our daily cravings will be wonderful.

Bathrooms - Let us paint a picture for you of the typical Asian bathroom. About 90% of the time, the toilet is Western-syle (on the travelling scene); 10% of the time, it's a squat toilet. Whether it is in your hotel or at a restaurant, toilet paper usually isn't provided, so hopefully you brought your own (locals use that bucket of water over there and their left hand; or, the spray gun attached to the wall). The Asian plumbing often can't handle toilet paper (a Western invention), so when you're finished, throw it in the garbage can (that may or may not have a lid). If you're lucky, the toilet has a working flusher. If not, take that bucket of water and pour it in the bowl - that's bucket flush! The tap by the bucket is in case it's a two- or three-bucket job. Oh, you want to take a shower? In India, often you just got a bucket with a smaller bucket, for throwing water on yourself. Here is Southeast Asia, there are shower heads. But notice the lack of a tub or shower cubicle, and the drain in the floow. The whole bathroom is your shower! And the floor and toilet seat will stay wet for hours! After nine months of this, bathrooms back home will be so... luxurious.

Show Me the Money - Each country required bargaining in varying degrees, from Vietnam (for bloody everything) to Thailand (only for souveniers and transportation). But back home, it happens face-to-face usually for used cars and at garage sales. Fixed prices will be a refreshing change. We've been paying for internet by the hour since we left Canada, and we're sick of it! The cost has ranged from 25 cents to $5 per hour... and speeds have varied from slower than dial-up to lightening fast. North America is about the only place in the world where we must pay for incoming calls on our cell phones - pretty much everywhere else this is unheard of - even in Asia! And of course, although we are not looking forward to working again, it will be nice to be earning money again, and watching our bank balance grow instead of shrink!

(Inter)National Communities - We have become so used to 95% of the people around us not speaking English, it will be weird to be surrounded by English speakers - with similar accents, no less! Being part of an international travelling community means meeting new, interesting people from all over the world every day. Is it common to randomly talk to people at restaurants, on buses, anywhere really - everyone is friendly, everyone is in the same boat, and everyone has a story to tell. The next time you are out for dinner, imagine a stranger (probably from another country) suddenly pulls up a chair to your table and asks you where you are from, where you are heading, and then gives you their email address. Randomly talking to strangers and trading contact information just isn't as accepted once you're off the travelling scene.

Add to all that living with a closet/dresser instead of out of a backpack, a wardrobe 20 times as big as the one we've been living with, cold weather, high prices (HOW MUCH for a beer???), dogs on leashes, and weird animals like skunks and squirrels... if you see us walking around back home in a daze, please ensure we get home safely! Or, please, just buy us a beer!

Angkor, I Barely Know Her!

We arrived in Siem Reap last Friday with one objective: to go see the Temples of Angkor. Scattered around the outskirts of the city are hundreds of stone temples built between the 9th and 13th centuries. The temples fell off the proverbial map until around 1908, when French archaeologists began to clear away the encroaching jungle and rebuild the damaged temples. The most famous temple, Angkor Wat, claims to be the largest religious building in the world. It's a big symbol of national pride for Cambodians, appearing on the money, flag, cigarettes, and even beer. We made it into the park for sunrise and spent the whole morning touring seven of the temples, including Angkor Wat and Ta Prohm, a temple complex being taken over by giant trees whose roots are slowly strangling the stone buildings. It was even used as a set for the movie Tomb Raider.

While in Siem Reap Andrea found a cricket in her dinner. Although Cambodians eat them deep-fried by the bagful, she did not consume it. She also did not complain about it; her dish was veggie, and it was a "bonus"- like complaining about an extra piece of chicken in your dinner. After that we got lured into a bar that was hosting pig racing for charity. That's right, 12 pigs competed to see which one could run a course around the bar the fastest (while being chased), and half of all bets placed went to local charities. It was very squealy.

Cambodia has a dark history that is pretty recent but widely unknown in the world. From 1975 through the 1990s, a group called the Khmer Rouge led a bloody revolution that killed millions of Cambodians. Educated people, monks, doctors, those who could speak foreign languages or who wore glasses, were among the people labeled "parasites" and then forced into labour camps, or imprisoned, tortured, and killed. Only now are leaders of the Khmer Rouge being brought to trial, and unfortunately the main leader, Pol Pot, has already died before being tried for his crimes against humanity.

Now we're back in Phnom Pehn, the capital. We visited the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, a former Khmer Rouge-run prison that, at its gruesome peak, killed 100 people per day. From 1975 to 1979, 20,000 men, women, and children were held and tortured here, before being executed at the Killing Fields 14 km outside of town. Pretty much any Cambodian has a story of personal tragedy due to the Khmer Rouge regime. The museum was shocking, but it felt like a history that should be acknowledged, even if it is a little late.

We are waiting for our Thai visas to be ready in a few days before we head back into Thailand. We have seen everything we wanted to see, so we decided to travel to the southern beaches again. We will be meeting up with Floris and Marlous, our Dutch friends, on Koh Phan-gan for our second full moon party. Killing a few weeks on the beaches before we head home certainly won't be very difficult!

Harry and the Hendersons... I mean, the Swinsons

We've been in Cambodia for the past two weeks, enjoying friendly people, yummy food, and a wide variety of beers. You know your perspective is shot when Cambodia's $0.75 beers are "really expensive" compared to Vietnam's $0.20 beers.

From the capitol Phnom Phen we headed south to Sihanoukville, Cambodia's big beach destination. The beach turned out to be small and dirty, with many many people selling or begging. Unfortunately, many of the sellers are very young children, and tourists still buy things from them, keeping them useful to their "pimps" and out of school, where they belong. The town also had its fair share of old Western men with young Cambodian "girlfriends" - apparently 1/3 of prostitutes here are between the ages of 12 and 17. All this, combined with three full days of rain, pushed us on to the next town.

Sleepy Kampot has been our favourite spot in Cambodia so far, and we spent a week relaxing there. Every single child in town waved, smiled, and shouted "Hi! How are you?" as we walked by (or they biked by). We felt like celebrities.

We rented bikes and visited a local swimming spot on the river, where the 12 year old boys tried to secretly photograph Andrea. Craig laughed. Along the way we visited the zoo, where we were able to feed elephants and shake their trunks. We also met Harry, one of the orangutangs, and the lax safety meant we could scratch his tummy and shake his hand. Don't worry, he didn't bite! He did fall in love with Andrea, though.

In Kampot we found a great little restaurant, Chim's, with incredible food: homemade pumpkin soup with garlic baugette, chicken amok (a sweet Cambodian red curry with coconut milk), and lok lak (beef in a black pepper gravy). We met some friendly travellers here one night, including two fellow Canadians, Josh and Jen, from Ottawa.

We went to Kep for a day, as did Josh and Jen, and we all enjoyed a fresh crab dinner with black cracked pepper at the market. Yes, Craig and I ate crab, and it was delicious! A gian plate full of four meaty crabs cost all of $5. Here we saw a lady boy wearing a wicked Napolean Dynamite "Shocks, Pegs, Lucky!" shirt. Craig complemented him (her?) on it, and won himself a non-English speaking girlfriend for life.

Yesterday we arrived in Battambang, another riverside town. In the past two weeks it has rained 10 days - apparently, this is the rainy season. We have a few more towns to visit in Cambodia before we head back into Thailand to end off our trip.

Ding Dong, Farewell Vietnam

In Nha Trang, a seaside town and Vietnam's unofficial scuba diving capital, we decided not to do any diving. We heard it isn't that spectacular due to underwater garbage and the effects of dynamite fishing. Instead we spent a day at Vinpearl Land - a scaled-down version of Canada's Wonderland (or Disneyland, to our non-Canadian readers). For $16 we got unlimited access to outdoor rides (including a roller coaster), animal shows (complete with monkeys wearing silk and riding tiny bikes), indoor arcade games, a "4D" movie theatre, and a waterpark with a lazy river, slides, and a wave pool. Also, our three-km-long cable car rides (the world's longest over water) to and from the island were included. Since the place was chock full of Vietnamese families, we considered it "immersing ourselves in local culture."

Next up was the refreshing climate of another hill town (elevation 1500 m), Dalat. During our three days there it was between 15 and 20 degrees Celcius - ahhh. Unfortunately, it also rained on and off. But the $2 (!) bottles of red wine (locally produced) and the $2 baguette and cheese deals at the bakery made up for the rain.

Sidenote: the only cheese that stores carry in Vietnam is triangles of "Laughing Cow" cheese. While it is an alright cheese, we really miss a nice sharp cheddar, a savoury brie, or some old blue cheese (well, actually only Craig misses the smelly blue cheese).

Our final town was Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon (and actually still called Saigon by everyone in the south - hmmm, a small rebellion against communism?). We visited the War Remnants Museum with its American planes and tanks. The photo exhibits, primarily from the "American War" (aka the Vietnam War), were heart-wrenching. The jars of miscarried Agent Orange babies were a little much. And although the museum was pretty anti-American and presented a very one-sided, propagandist view of the war (you'd think the Viet Cong were saints), it was a touching tribute to the millions casualties on both sides, including civilians and international journalists.

We meandered down the Mekong on a two-day tour, staying the night at a floating hotel, and entered Cambodia via a riverside border crossing. We're currently in the capital, Phnom Phen ("nom pen"), where we're getting our bearings before heading south to the beaches. For the last two weeks or so, we've been travelling with Marlous, Floris, and Vanessa, two Dutchies and a Brit. It's been great to play cards and share drinks with a group of like-minded people.

In our blog we try to be positive about where we go and our experiences. There are always giong to be high and lows of travelling. However, so far Vietnam has been the least favourite country we're visited. There are more scams and tricks to separate you from your dong (money) than anywhere else. The bargaining is excessive, many hotels tried to cheat us, and we just got sick and tired of it. If you get a few glasses of wine or beer into us when we return home in six weeks we'll have some good stories to tell that we can laugh at with the benefit of hindsight. While Vietnam has a lot to offer - beautiful cities, cheap beer, alright food (though it has nothing on Thailand) - Southeast Asia has much more friendly and welcoming countries than Vietnam.

Craig Tried To Pay For Dinner With Wiener, But They Would Only Accept Dong

An overnight train delivered us from Sapa's cool mountain climate back into Hanoi's heat. When our train arrived at 4 am it was already 30 degrees in Hanoi. Two hours later we boarded another train and headed south to Nihn Binh ("Ning Bing"), where we found a tiny restaurant that served excellent goat (sorry Brad) and beef.

Here we did a boat trip through the Trang An caves. We were rowed down a 3 km river winding through 15 limestone caves. We can across a Vietnamese movie being shot at a temple along the river's edge, complete with warriors, ninjas, and lots of swords. Unfortunately white extras did not fit into the script, but they were doing some production stills that Craig snuck into. We also went to Mua Cave, which has a look-out at the top of 500 stone steps over rice paddies, rivers, and limestone karsts. It was absolutely beautiful, but the 500 steps at noon in 40 degree heat was craziness.

Next up was another 12-hour overnight sleeper bus ride to Hue ("Hway"). This was the night of the World Cup final between Holland and Spain, so our bus stopped at 2 am to watch most of the game on a tiny TV at a roadside stall. Craig was the only backpacker who got off the bus to watch the game with a bunch of locals. When they asked him where he was from and he replied "Canada", they weren't very impressed, since "your country didn't even make it to the World Cup."

Hue was a very modern city - it used to be the capital of Vietnam. We walked the wide, shaded streets, enjoying views of the Citadel and drinking freshly squeezed sugar can juice over ice. Mmm.

Five days ago we arrived here, in Hoi An, our favourite city so far in Vietnam. It's a World Heritage City, so many of the buildings downtown are preserved like a fine strawberry jam. The city sits on a river, and at night the lights of the colourful paper lanterns twinkle on the water. The food is delicious (the best yet), the people are friendly, the beer is cold and cheap (20 cents a glass again), and the beach is only a 5 km bike ride away. We've reconnected with people we met in Laos and Hanoi, so it's been nice to have some social nights out. It's been very easy to chill here for a few days. There are almost 200 tailors and cobblers in town and many travellers choose to have custom-made clothes and shoes. We took a pass, since the workmanship can be hit or miss, and our packs are choc-a-bloc with New Zealand and India clothes we never wear!

Tonight we take our last sleeper bus in Vietnam, since the rest of the towns will be (relatively) close together. We'll be arriving tomorrow morning in Nha Trang, the scuba diving capital of Vietnam.

We have been having difficulty finding computers that will let us upload pictures to our blog. Many computer labs here block Facebook, and most are not fast enough to upload more than one or two photos per hour. Gross.

Fist Full of Dong

Remember the air conditioned bus (complete with beds! how posh!) to Hanoi we wrote about in our last post? Well, it turned out to be a complete gong show. The set-up of the bus was three rows of bunk beds (people sleeping head-to-toe) that were crazy-narrow, and we couldn't fully recline because our feet went under the head of the person in front of us. There were 36 beds, but over 50 passengers - luckily we got actual beds, but we couldn't get to the bathroom because the aisles were full of sleeping people. Other backpackers left, furious, after they were told they had to sleep on the floor even though they paid $40 like the rest of us. The good news is that the bus was air-conditioned (except for four hours in the middle of the night while we were pulled over at a rest station while our driver slept), we were probably more comfy than we would have been on a regular bus, there was (bad) 1980s karaoke, and we made it through the border and arrived in Hanoi safe and sound (although it the trip took 26 hours in total instead of the promised 16 hours - we even stopped at one point to have the bus washed!).

We had been warned that Vietnam is the most in-your-face country in southeast Asia, and so far it is definitely true. We have to barter for things here we've never had to before, from bottles of water to meals to the price of our guesthouse. This gets tiring. If we're sitting near a street (even eating or drinking) people constantly come up and try and sell us anything and everything: hats, sandals, donuts, purses, etc. Hanoi is also full of scams, from taxis changing the agreed-upon fare at the end of a journey or having "fast" tourist meters, to shoe repair guys who hold your shoes for hostage to dodgy guesthouses demanding extra payment upon check-out. There are countless ways to try and separate tourists from their dong (aka, the Vietnamese currency).

All that aside, Hanoi is a very clean and modern town, at least around the Old Quarter where we stayed and explored. It is full of trees, lakes, better shopping than Bangkok, and our favourite, cheap delicious local beer. With the 40-degree-plus temperatures in Hanoi, meeting up with fellow travelers (and locals) for an afternoon session of street-side 20 cent (!) glasses of microbrewery draught beer is the only way to survive. One night a group of us even found a pub with free (unlimited) bottles of beer from 6pm to 9pm, and then more free beer if we stood on one foot for two minutes.

After exploring Hanoi for a few days, we booked an overnight sleeper train north to Sapa, for some detoxing in the hill station at 1600m. Coming from Hanoi's sweltering heat to Sapa's 20-degree loveliness was heaven. This town is fairly touristy, but rightfully so it is a big holiday destination for Vietnamese people trying to escape the heat. It is built on a hill so the views over the surrounding green valleys are beautiful. We have explored trails around town and are glad we've been working out as we have to ascent eight flights of stairs to reach our hotel room!

We've also been indulging in Vietnamese cuisine, though since it's a touristy town we have to seek out restaurants that offer more than pizzas, pasta, and burgers. Last night we sampled some local plum wine: $2 for a "bottle" which turned out to be a refilled 500 ml Aquafina water bottle. It was extremely potent, but that turned out to be a great conversation starter with a local Vietnamese guy Craig started doing shots (of "wine") with. As adventurous as we are, we decided to take a pass on the BBQ dog paws and puppy hindquarters for sale at the market (there is a suspicious lack of street dogs in this country). We are still undecided on the restaurant down the street, where horse is the only meat on the menu and is accompanied by boiled blood stew!

Lessons in Ridiculousness: Taking Buses Through Northern Laos

Luang Nam Tha was the first town of our northern Laos "Off the Beaten Track" tour. It was near a National Protected Area, where we did an 18 km kayak trip down the Nam Tha River. The day involved navigating various classes of rapids, visiting two hill tribe villages, and eating a BBQ lunch (including a delicious bass) cooked at the side of the river.

Sidenote: roads in northern Laos were all kinds of crazy. Mountains, hairpin turns, unsealed sections with potholes the size of St. Bernards, and more cow obstacles than New Zealand meant we kept an average speed of 25 - 35 km/h. This makes for slooooooooow going. Heaps of Gravol made the trip fine for us, if a little hot and uncomfortable at times, but on each bus ride at least 5 to 6 Laos people were constantly throwing up (and then chucking the plastic puke bags out the window and into the countryside - painful to watch). The views over the dramatic cliffs and valleys, and the lovely sunsets, made the journey worth it.

From Luang Nam Tha we caught a 9-hour bus to Nong Khiaw, a beautiful riverside town completely surrounded by limestone karsts. This was our favourite spot in Laos. We did various hikes to caves (which housed 100 people hiding from bomb attacks during the Indo-China War) and waterfalls. It was gloriously quiet with excellent food and friendly locals.

Next up was a 12-hour bus to Sam Neua, which involved two bus break-downs and Andrea getting puked on by a 5-year-old. We arrived at midnight, two hours late, and faced the challenge of finding an open guest house in the middle of the night during a power outage - the city was pitch black. Sam Neua didn't have much to offer, so we left after two days.

On the 9-hour bus ride to Phonsavan the little girl in front of us threw up, no joke, at least 25 times - luckily into bags instead of on Andrea. Curiously, we found the best Indian restaurant outside of India in Phonsavan, run by an Indian lady in a sari. It was a treat but reminded Craig how much he misses Indian food - Laos food, usually noodle soup and fried rice dishes, just isn't the same, especially when you're eating it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner some days.

Touring through the north, we learned about the "Secret War" that devastated Laos in the 60s and 70s. The US carpet-bombed eastern and northeastern Laos from 1965 to 1973 because of the presence of the North Vietnamese during the "American War" (as the Vietnam War is known here in Southeast Asia). One statistic we found particularly devastating was that it is estimated that America dropped an average of 1 planeload of bombs every 8 minutes, 24 hours a day, for 9 years. This amounts to 1.9 million metric tonnes of bombs - or 2 tonnes for every person in Laos. Unfortunately, the country is still scattered with unexploded ordinance, which has killed at least 10,000 innocent people so far, and which means that literally going "off the beaten track" in many places is NOT recommended!

We are now back in Vientiane, the capital city, after an 11-hour bus ride south. Tonight we board an air-conditioned sleeper bus (complete with beds! how posh!) for the 16-hour-plus ride to Hanoi, in north Vietnam.

Overall, the people and the landscape of northern Laos (and the yummy meat salads) have been wonderful. After we are done touring Cambodia we may pop back into south Laos to see what adventures await us there!

Moore Pathammavong's Guide to Winning a Free Car

Vientiane, the small capital city of Laos, was our first introduction to Laos culture. During our two days there we explored the city, falling in love with cheap fresh fruit shakes ($0.60) and the friendly people. The country used to be ruled by the French, which still shows in its many baguette sandwich stands, its French signs, and its Arc de Triomphe replica. Noodle soup is the standard dish here but there is still a variety of curries, fried rice and noodle dishes, and Craig's current favourite, "laap", which is basically a meat salad: minced chicken, pork or beef with mint leaves, lime juice, chillies, shallots, and fish sauce. His new favourite condiment is "jaew bawng", a thick paste of chillies and buffalo skin. Yum!

After Vientiane, our next stop was Vang Vieng, a small town a few hours north. It's surrounded by giant limestone cliffs and filled with backpackers. People come here for one reason only - tubing down the Nam Song River - and the whole town makes its livelihood from the tourist dollars. So, of course we had to try it out.

We rented tubes from the local cooperative and caught a shared tuk-tuk to the launch point 3 km north of town with two fellow Canadians, two Belgians, and a few Brits, who were to become our tubing buddies for the day.

Basically, as you tube down the river the many wooden shacks, aka bars, lining the river throw you a pop bottle on a rope to pull you in to their drinking hole. Cheap buckets or beers follow, before you head back on the river to continue the journey. Bars also have mud tug of war, and a variety of swings, zip-lines, and slides plunging you into the water (and our moms definitely would NOT have liked to see how high some of the jumps were!). We made it down the river safe and sound with just a rope burn and a bruised tailbone at the end.

The 6-hour, 240 km, bus ride to the town where we are now, Luang Prabang, made us glad we bought lots of gravol. The roads here are as hilly and windy as the roads in New Zealand... if the roads in New Zealand were on acid. On the "local" (aka "cheaper") buses, if you arrive too late and all the seats are full you get a plastic stool to sit in the aisle while you dodge the puke bags that get handed out, used, tied up, and let loose to roll around the bus. Funny!

Luang Prabang, along with Vientiane and Vang Vieng, form the Tourist Trifecta - the usual northern route for backpackers in Laos. This town is nice, but VERY touristy. It's right on the Mekong River and is very French, with crumbling mansions and shaded streets (and baguettes and crepes for sale on every corner). Today we visited the Kuang Si waterfalls 32 km south of town. A wide, multi-tiered waterfalls tumbles over limestone rocks and forms many turquoise-green swimming holes. Of course, we had to hike 15 minutes straight up along the waterfall and through some shallow rapids, where we found a beautiful secluded swimming hole - secluded for about 20 minutes, when a giant tour group of Canadian tourists found it. Damn Canadians!

Tomorrow we face a 10-hour, 370 km bus ride further north to Luang Nam Tha, where we can finally consider ourselves off the beaten track. There we plan on looking into trekking in the nearby Nam Ha National Protected Area. Hopefully the gravol keeps on working!

And with the 7800 or so kip to the Canadian dollar, it is REALLY fun taking out 1,000,000 (kip) at the ATM every few days! It's especially nice when the ATM slip gives us our current bank balance in kip, and we are multi-multi-multi millionaires!

Werewolf Bar Mitzvah

From Koh Samui we joined the monthly migration of backpackers to the island of Koh Phangan ("fan-yan"), home of the Full Moon Party. We stayed at Hat Rin Beach, which was chock-full of young (average age = 22) British flashpackers looking for a good time. We arrived two days early to secure decent accomodation - estimates say even in the low season up to 8000 people attend the Full Moon Party.

The nights leading up to the party, and the night of the party itself, found everyone on the beach. Activities included dancing (mostly to horrible trance music), playing fire games (jumping rope with a rope on fire, "spitting" fire with a mouth full of alcohol and a torch), and drinking buckets (literally, small buckets of of extremely strong vodka/whiskey/rum cocktails). Even though we were definitely older than most of the people there, we embraced the atmosphere and indulged in a few buckets. The bucket booths are a thing to behold: a long line-up of rickety wooden booths on the beach, with Thais yelling at you to buy their bucket, as the competition is fierce and they are all exactly the same.

We stayed on Hat Rin for a few extra days after the party, to witness the beach go utterly deserted and the area turn into a ghost town. It was actually nice and relaxing.

Our final stop on our Southern Beaches Tour was Koh Tao, famous for its scuba diving. Since we both completed our Open Water and Advanced scuba certifications in Australia five years ago, we did four "fun dives". Some were better than others, and we realized how spoiled we were with most of the diving we did in Australia. Even the snorkeling we did in Malaysia was more interesting (in terms of marine life). However, it was great to get back under the water - it's an incredible feeling to be swimming 25 m underwater with a school of fish 5 m across swimming along beside you. And Thailand's diving in much better - and cheaper (at less than $30/dive including boat trip and equipment) - than any of the diving you can do in Ontario!

Now we're in Bangkok, safe in the tourist bubble of Khao San Road and Soi Rambutri. Apparently it's calmed down here a lot, but this area is so far from where the Red Shirt protestors were, we wouldn't even know if anything was up. The 8 pm curfew has been lifted but there are much less tourists around compared to when we were here in January. We're not sure if that's due to it being the low season now, all the Bangkok unrest, or both.

Tonight we take an overnight bus to Vientiane, the capital city of Laos. We're excited to be getting to a new country to explore, especially since so many people have told us how wonderful Laos is. The southern beaches of Thailand were lovely and relaxing, but were not really representative of Thai culture, so we're looking forward to getting away from the party backpacker scene (kind of) and immersing ourselves into a new culture. Plus, we feel rich going to Laos; at around 7900 kip to the Canadian dollar, we became millionaires after exchanging around $170 CAD!

Today it is 3 months exactly until we return home, and we have 3 more countries to visit: Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia. We're pretty sure time is going to fly!

It's Raining... Ladyboys!

Our first Thai beach destination was the mainland beach of Rai Leh, outside of Krabi, which is only accessible by longtail boat. Longtail boats are long (surprise!) wooden boats seating about ten people, similar to an oversized canoe, with a propellor on the end of a three metre long driveshaft (hence the name "longtail").

We spent two days on Rai Leh, which is surrounded by soaring limestone cliffs covered with rock climbers. 90% of the places to stay were expensive resorts, contrary to what our guide book says, which means it's one of the many beaches quickly changing from a budget backpacking destination to a flashpacking mecca. We left early hoping to find a more budget-friendly place.

Three boat rides and a minibus ride later we arrived on the island of Koh Lanta. Since it's the island's low season we were able to find a great bungalow 50 metres from the beach for 1/4 of the regular price. Just down the road was a restaurant serving cheap, fresh home-cooked Thai meals where we quickly became regulars. One day we rented a scooter and explored the 32-kilometre long island (which just added to Craig's desire for a motorcycle back home), stopping to pet a baby elephant that barely came up to Andrea's waist. The rest of our week there we spent relaxing on the beach or in the shade of our hut, reading like mad.

Now we're on Koh Samui, one of Thailand's most famous islands. After hearing numerous people say it's very built up and touristy we weren't sure how we'd like it and if it would be in our budget. Luckily we've found a bungalow by the beach that is a wonderful deal ($10 CAD/night). We're on Lamai Beach, where the busy strip comes alive after sundown with street markets, street food, ladyboys (of course!), and old white men with their young Thai girlfriends (which always freaks Andrea out). It all makes for great eating and people watching, so we figure we'll stay here a few more days.

It's getting into the rainy season here, which means occasional showers. On Koh Lanta it rained almost every afternoon for about an hour. The rain cools the air and the sun always returns. At night there are pretty cool lightning storms over the sea rivalling the intensity of a Pink Floyd laser show.

We are often surprised at how few travellers we meet who are as "budget" as us. Since most people only come here for a few weeks to a few months, and so many are European, they are on a bigger daily budget than we are. We try to spend no more than $10 CAD (300 baht) on our accomodation (which usually means a fan room with our own bathroom but no air conditioning, TV, or fridge), but at some places (like Rai Leh) that's close to impossible. We've started getting breakfast at 7/11 (which are as ubiquitous as Tim Hortons in Canada and are usually found every 100 metres down the road - literally), since yogurt-and-cereal is half the price of restaurant breakfasts. When going on the internet or booking a bus trip, we hunt around for the absolute cheapest price. And we always try to get out of the tourist bubble to find the restaurants where locals are eating authentic Thai food, which is cheaper and much better tasting than the Westernized versions of the same dishes they sell for double (or triple!) the price near all the resorts. All these efforts mean we're able to eat like royalty while still coming in well under our budget of $50 CAD per day.

ABC Pictures!

The best desert EVER!

Craig Loves Malaysia So Much He Wants To Take It Behind The Middle School And Get It Pregnant

We ended up staying on Pulau Perhentian Kecil for five nights. It was a very narrow island; we were staying on the west coast, but walked along a jungle-y, ten minute trail every day to enjoy the clear blue water and white sand on the est coast. The food was disappointing - overpriced, Westernized versions of Malay food - with not a drop of duty-free alcohol in sight. I guess you trade good quality food for the beautiful beaches.

Because of the shallow depth and crystal clear water, we opted to put off scuba diving until Thailand and took a snorkelling trip instead. We went by boat to five locations around the two islands in the area. The underwater scenery was wonderful, with unusal coral formations and cool sea creatures. At Shark Point, our first location, we saw a black-tip shark within three minutes of getting in the water. By the end of the day, we'd seen multiple sharks, sting rays, thousands of colourful fish (many of which enjoyed nibbling on Craig's peeling back skin - ew!), a school of teethy, menacing barracudas, and a giant green sea turtle well over a metre long who Craig dove down over five metres to stare in the eyes as it chomped on coral.

Next we headed to Kota Bharu where we spent three days eating our hearts out. Delicious street food was everywhere, at real prices not set to exploit tourists. Our favourite eatery was the nightly food markets, where rows of local vendors sold an astonishing array of Malaysian food. Everything from marinated skewers of chicken breast/neck/feet to every size and shape of noodle that your heart could desire to the biggest spread of exotic sweets Andrea had ever laid eyes on was for sale at the markets. If you haven't guessed it by now, somewhere in India, our trip has turned into an International Culinary Tour Extravaganza.

Our final stop in Malaysia was the big well-developed island of Penang on the west coast, which wasn't very far offshore and had more of a big-city feel than a touristy beach vibe. The town has a large Chinatown area and a giant Little India. Since we're both still going through Indian food withdrawl, we ensured our first meal was an Indian feast of paneer butter masala, aloo gobi masala, chapathi, and Indian chai, all enjoyed over the sweet smell of incense and ear-splittingly loud Bollywood music. Just like old times. Andrea had to restrain Craig from booking a plane ticket back to India.

Probably the strangest treat we've had so far Craig has voted to be in his Top Five dishes consumed thus far (and Andrea's tastebuds were too confused to decide): a local specialty called ABC. The small mom-and-pop stand always had a line-up, and people were buying them as fast as they could make them. Disclaimer: ABC is going to sound disgusting, but it's really delicious (says Craig) and confusingly alright (says Andrea). ABC consists of a bowl of shaved ice, covered with a sweet red syrup, green gummy tapioca balls, stringy black gummy pieces which can only be described as "leech-like" (honestly, we have no idea what half of these ingredients are), clear lychee-flavoured jube jubes, spoonfuls of red kidney beans and creamed corn (seriously), all topped with a heavy pour of sweetened condensed milk. Craig usually ate two bowls of ABC a day, which Andrea stole spoonfuls without beans.

Today we caught a mini-bus from Penang to Thailand. We were slightly apprehensive about the land border crossing, since it was our first outside of Canada. However, it went as smoothly as Big Dave's head. We are currently in the town of Hat Yai, and will be leaving Monday for our first Thai beach destination (yet to be decided since there are so many to choose from).

After spending three weeks in Malaysia we have found it to be the most liveable country we've visited (outside of Australia) - it's clean, friendly, and safe. That said, we don't fully understand the current government situation regarding the well-being of its citizens (for instance, the government tightly censors the media). However it was a lovely country to visit, and if we end up liking another country in South East Asia as much, we'd be very surprised.

It hasn't taken us long to get back on the beer bandwagon, since alcohol in Malaysia usually had very high taxes. Here, Chang beer (7%) costs under $1 CAD, so we sit here enjoying a beer (or three) in the muggy 30-degree Thai evening. We definitely don't live a rough life!

Craig Misses Indian Food More Than He Misses You

To further our post-India culture shock, after spending two days in Kuala Lumpur we headed to Puala Tioman, a small island paradise.

First of all, our bus to the port town of Mersing was about as different to a bus in India as you can get. Instead of 300-decibel Bollywood movies playing over three sets of speakers, we listened to easy-listening Top 40 Malaysian music set at the volume of a baby's fart. No one was yelling at each other or at their mobile phones - most people slept. Instead of missing seat cushions and windows, the bus was quite luxurious and less than 40 years old (in fact, it seemed brand new). And in place of potholed, dirt roads littered with goats and cows, we drove down modern paved highways, smooth as the farting baby's bottom.

Stepping foot onto ABC beach on Tioman, we truly left India's often-frantic pace behind. The beach we stayed at had no road, just a concrete foot path lined with family-run restaurants and bungalow complexes. The odd scooter (many complete with a sidecar full of waving kids) would lazily ferry children to and from school.

We spent our time on the island unwinding, swimming in crystal-clear blue water, and relaxing on the beach in between sampling lots of delicious home-made Malaysian food. We went on jungle treks to explore other beaches, with swinging monkeys overhead and shy six-food-long monitor lizards crossing our path. We even managed to get back into the routine of morning jogs, something we never did in India, since here we no longer have to deal with avoiding random cows and kamikazee rickshaw drivers, or air quality equal to that of a coal factory located at a wastewater treatment plant.

With $10 CAD/night bungalows to rent a mere 20 metres from the beach and meals costing between $1 and $4, Pulau Tioman is the kind of place that can kidnap a person for awhile. After a week of ultimate relaxing, we were ready to jump onto the backpacker circuit of Malaysia, with a three hour ferry ride and a four hour bus ride to our next destination.

We've been in the sleepy mainland beach town of Cherating for three days now. All the rain we didn't get in India is catching up to us, and it's rained on and off all day today.

Tomorrow we leave for our next destination: another island full of beaches and duty-free alcohol. As we follow the east coast highway north, we find the Malaysian backpacker trail to be just our cup of tea: it follows the coast and we never find ourselves too far from a beach.

PS - Yes, Thailand is our next destination. Yes, we know about all the unrest there - our moms keep emailing us articles. And yes, Craig is excited to get some photojournalism action there.

Culture Shock! Trading Indian Chaos for Asian Order

We are in Kuala Lumpur, the capital city of Malaysia, and LOVE it!

We are feeling definite culture shock, coming here after almost three months in India. Instead of squat toilets and dirty bathrooms, there are Western toilets and super-clean bathrooms; instead of garbage on the streets, there are garbage cans everywhere; instead of people trying to cut in front of you in a queue for the metro/subway, there are people waiting patiently in lines; instead of incessant honking, there is... lots of traffic, yet quiet. We are missing our India food and some of the hustle and bustle, but in a way, Malaysia is a good change. This city is probably cleaner than Toronto, and very modern and Westernized.

Today we went and visited the Petronas Towers, home of a Malaysian oil and gas company, the tallest twin towers in the world at 88 floors and 451.9 m tall. They have free tours to the double-decker skybridge that links the 41st and 42nd floors. Looking down at the city from 170 m high was pretty neat.


























The street food here in great - lots of soups and noodle and rice dishes, and meat, yes meat. Although we did not miss meat in India, turns out neither of us are destined to become vegetarians any time soon!

And now, for a Small World Moment: randomly we ran into Erin, the Canadian girl we met in Goa, at the street markets yesterday. Since she's also bouncing around South East Asia until September, I am sure we will run into her again.

Tomorrow we board a bus for the town of Mersing, where we will catch a ferry for Pulau Tioman (Tioman Island). We are in the need of some relaxing beach time to detox from the hustle and bustle of India!

To India, With Love

From the temperate hill station of Kodaikanal we descended back into the full-on Indian heat - it's been at least 37 degrees Celsius every day since.

We spent two days in Trichy, where we visited two GIANT temples. One involved climbing 437 stone-cut steps to a wonderful view at the top. (An information board here claimed that geological surveys dated the rocky mountain at 3500 billion years old.... hmmm....) You can imagine how sweaty we were by the end of the climb. Luckily there was a film crew from Mumbai waiting for us at the top who were filming a documentary/travel show. They enjoyed getting lots of shots of two sweaty, sweaty white people climbing up and down the steps.

Our second-last stop was Pondicherry, the French-Indian town. Its history as a French trading post is still apparent in its many street signs being in both French and Tamil (the state language), businesses that close from 1 - 3:30 PM for a long lunch, and its yearly celebration of Bastille Day. Two days here were enough - we didn't really love it, though we couldn't pinpoint why.

We've been in Chennai now for three days. It's another big city (6.6 million). We've been doing last-minute shopping, exploring, and soaking it all in, as well as trying lots of street food and drinks we hadn't yet tried and indulging in our favourite Indian meals. We fly to Malaysia tonight.


And now...


India In Five Words


Friendly

We weren't fully prepared for all the attention we'd attract here. Being white, we stand out in any crowd as painfully obvious tourists. However, this means that there are loads of people who want to talk to us, take their picture with us, and ask us the Usual Questions: Where are you from? What is your good name? Is this your first time in India? How long are you here for? How are you enjoying your trip? We could answer the questions in our sleep by now, but it's great meeting people. Often there were times we were trying to get directions/bus info/train info/etc and we'd attract a giant crowd of people wanting to help (or watch). The children are the best; walking down a street, they often call out greetings to us, shake our hands, and try out their limited English.


Challenging

All friendliness aside, India is not without its challenges and frustrations. For every wonderful person we've met, we've also encountered at least ten not-so-wonderful people who try to rip us off any way they can. For rickshaw drivers to apple sellers to shop owners, white skin usually means MONEY and its close to impossible to get a fair price. We've been ignored, given the crappy seats on a long-distance bus ride (we've even been lied to about the destination of a long distance bus just to get us to fill empty seats - we discovered this half way to the wrong town), and had people try to cut in front of us in almost every line we've ever stood in. The racism (is that what it is?) can be extremely frustrating. Add to that language barriers, erratic bus schedules, Delhi belly, and the ubiquitous Indian head wobble (which means yes, or no, or I don't speak English, or anything else), and it adds up to a challenging 11 weeks. We've joked that "surviving" India should be something worth putting on a resume since it requires so many skills!

Any people thinking of traveling to India together need the ability to differentiate between being angry at your travel partnet vs. being frustrated at a situation; the ability to have important conversations regarding travel plans with at least 20 Indians watching/listening; and the willingness to unashamedly discuss your bowel movements together.


Sense-ational

India is, without a doubt, a definite assault on the senses!

Sights: Vibrant colours abound in India, from spectacular saris to the rainbows of fruit and veg stalls to the colour-throwing festival of Holi, with much more in between.

Smells: Walking down any street the smells range from mouth-watering restaurant meals to open sewers (they're EVERYWHERE) to fresh flowers in women's hair to cow and dog poop.

Tastes: Ahh, Indian food. Craig says it's the best food in the world - and Andrea just might agree. The range of dishes here is incredible, and unlike any "Indian" food we've ever had back in Canada. We've both been mostly vegetarian here, since so many restaurants are pure veg, and since the veggie food here is so good even Craig hasn't missed meat (much). Add to the food the spicy, milky chai (tea) and bakery sweets, and you have 11 weeks' worth of unforgettable meals. That said, somehow (maybe due to the 10 km + of walking we do daily) we've each lost at least 10 pounds.

Sounds: India is LOUD. City buses have air horns, and cars and motorbikes have unnecessarily loud DOUBLE horns. And everyone seems to honk them every five seconds, often for no reason. There is random music BLARING out of public speakers. Many cities have a VERY loud call to prayer at 5 am. And long-distance buses play Bollywood movies WAY above the threshold of hearing damage. We are certain we've both suffered hearing loss here. So speak up, will ya!

Touches: As we said, we shake hands with many strangers (adults and children) daily. Luckily, all restaurants have hand-washing stations. Most people eat with their hands here (even rice!), and we've only managed non-utensil eating for a few dishes - for rice, we still have to ask for a spoon. The hand-washing stations are especially lucky since toilet paper is not widely used here, but the "hand in bucket (of water)" technique is used. Even for number twos. (We always carry our own toilet paper.)


Perspective-Changing

India has put us in our place countless times. Although this country has the world's fastest-growing number of millionaires, a third of the population subsists on less than 45 rupees ($1 CAD) per day. (Our budget is 2000 rupees per day - and that's considered budget.) Poverty is everywhere, as are beggars. It gets a bit soul-tiring seeing upwards of 20 - 30 beggars a day (at least). We've heard accounts of parents purposely crippling their children so they can have a "good career" as a beggar. Government schools here have between 40 - 50 students in a class (and Ontario teachers complain!). People suffering from leprosy and polio - diseases unheard of in Canada - are everywhere. If we take anything away from this trip, hopefully our memories of India will make us complain a bit less about our "first world problems" and be more grateful for our fortunate lives in Canada.


Unforgettable

Like the Indian dust that settles into your clothes and bags and doesn't budge no matter how often you wash them, this country gets under your skin. You learn to love it or hate it - and we've definitely met travelers who are, unfortunately, hating it. Even though there are things we will miss about India there are also things we won't miss - but it's all a part of the experience. We can confidently say we LOVE India, and hope to return one day - maybe even with kids in tow, for some perspective-changing of their own.


And finally, because this post isn't already long enough...


Indian Math

$36 CAD/day spent
13 train rides
14 bus rides
41 rickshaw rides
23 cities visited
3 delicious, mouth-watering meals a day
1 Bollywood movie acting experience
7698 photographs taken of India by Craig
189 photographs taken of us by strangers
_________________________________

76 INCREDIBLE days in India

Heads in the Clouds

Turns out the next two towns we visited were also super touristy, but in the best possible way: they were India-touristy and chock full of Indian families on vacation. This means heaps of authentic cheap food; tons of friendly people; and barely any other Western tourists. It also means heaps of things to see and do.

We spent two days in Cape Comorin, the southernmost point in India. It's seven degrees north of the equator and it was SUPER hot - over 40 degrees Celsius. You can stand at the shore and look out at what appears to be the nexus of the universe, where three seas (the Arabian Sea, the Indian Ocean, and the Bay of Bengal) mingle and dance with the eloquent beauty of a drunken ballerina. There were islands with giant statues and temples just offshore. We got mobbed by many Indian families, and became the main tourist attraction when everyone wanted a "snap" with us. One family treated it like wedding photos, and kept trading family members in and out of the pictures to get many different combinations of everyone in a photo with us. They even got one of just Andrea and the baby. A group of 20 12-year-old girls on a school trip spent half an hour with us, and even got Andrea to sing the Canadian national anthem (no small feat - Andrea does NOT sing in public), and then they sang us the Indian national anthem. Luckily, Craig got most of the encounter (and all of the singing) on film. He, however, somehow managed not to sing.

For the past five days we've been in the hill station town of Kodaikanal (elevation 2100 m). The weather here is glorious - 25 degrees during the day, around 15 degrees overnight. We have done a different walk every day, around lakes, to viewpoints, and even past a golf course full of monkeys (we suspect golf balls get stolen often there).

The food here is incredible, and super cheap: teas and coffees for 5 rupees ($0.12), fresh bakery delights for 6 rupees ($0.15), yummy Indian breakfasts for 15 rupees ($0.40), and all-you-can-eat Indian lunches called thalis where they bring the refills straight to your table - the best kind of buffet ever - for 50 rupees ($1.25).

Everyone here is very friendly. We've met locals and shopowners who love us, so we feel welcome being recognized as we walk down the street. In a town of only 30,000 people, it's not hard to stand out as two of the few white people around.

This past weekend was a holiday weekend, so the town was hopping with well-off Indian families on vacation. We got asked to pose for pictures a lot - one girl even knocked on our hotel room one morning to get a "snap" before she checked out. Man, India is good for your self-esteem! We feel like celebrities!

Looking back, we wish we had visited more hill stations other than just Darjeeling and Kodaikanal. The weather up here is wonderful, the air is clean, and the people are so genuine.

We have only one week left in India before we fly to Malaysia. Our final three stops are planned (Trichy, Pondicherry, and Chennai). It's going to be difficult to say good-bye to such a colourful, bustling country as India.

Feeling Hot, Hot, Hot!

Although Palolem Beach had less of a laid-back, hippy vibe and more of a European package tourist feel, we ended up enjoying our four days there. We found three great restaurants we became short-term "regulars" at that served excellent, authentic, cheap Indian - one place came complete with a local cow who showed up every night to be fed by the cook. Once again, we met a fellow Canadian who we shared a few meals and drinks with - but this time, we did not have our own apartment where we could entertain.

Next up we headed south on an overnight train where we shared our berth with a very friendly Indian nun (Christianity is fairly common down here in the south) who, as usual, had many questions for us about Canadian culture and our impressions of India. When we awoke we were in the southern state of Kerala, home of the world's first freely elected communist government in 1957. The state has the highest literacy rate of any developing nation (91%), a life expectancy 10 years higher than the rest of India, and an infant mortality rate 1/5 of the national average.

Kerala has become a major tourist hot-spot, which unfortunately has made it not our cup of tea.

At our first town, Kochi, we got to see old cantilevered Chinese fishing nets in action. We met a bunch of people doing the Rickshaw Run, a charity event that involves driving a tuk-tuk across India in 14 days (crazy - see www.rickshawrun.com). Talking to these folks made Craig insanely jealous that he had not yet driven a tuk-tuk himself, so as part of our bartering that afternoon our rickshaw driver let Craig do a few laps around the neighbourhood in the rickshaw on our way back to our hotel. Also in town we did a day boat tour of some of the 900km of backwaters in the area, narrow rivers that are a highway network of sorts for many village residents.

Next up was the beach town of Varkala. This town felt as touristy as Kochi. By "touristy" we mean that it had no authentic Indian food (just expensive "Chinese/Italian/Continental") and everything was way overpriced. It almost felt like a resort town, since everything felt so Western-tourist-geared. Two days here was enough.

Today is our second day in the state capital of Trivandrum. We walked around town today and visited the zoo. Strangely, this zoo had many large empty enclosures, and kept the big cats (lions, tigers, and jaguars) in the smallest cages we'd ever seen. The animals were pacing and making lots of noise. It was sad.

During the day, the temperature has been soaring well into the mid/high 30s. It is HOT here! We sweat like mad, while the locals wear pants and sometimes even a jacket or a turtleneck!

Tomorrow we head for Cape Coromin, the southernmost point of the country. With a population of 20,000, we are excited to get back into real small-town India.

Hippy Hippy Shake

Before Mumbai we spent three nights in Udaipur, India's "most romantic city." It's definitely India's most 007-y city, as the James Bond movie Octopussy was filmed there. We watched it on a rooftop restaurant at sunset, and it was pretty neat to be overlooking the lake and palaces used in the filming of many scenes. We did find the local Indians to be very friendly once we ventured out of the tourist bubble.

Craig took a one-on-one cooking class from the woman who owned our hotel, Manju. The food was prepared in her family's kitchen while her curious adult children watched and asked Craig many questions. Andrea joined in for the final feast, but the family was very confused why Craig was so interested in cooking and Andrea was not. They didn't even believe we are married - I guess Andrea just isn't a traditional enough wife!

From Udaipur we headed to Mumbai, and we've already recounted our Bollywood adventures. We found Mumbai to be modern, cosmopolitan, fairly clean, and absolutely massive, with a population of 16 million. 2.5 million people alone pass through Mumbai's main train station each day!

Next we headed to Aurangabad where we did a trip to see the ancient Ellora Cave Temples, a series of 34 rock temples carved into a 2 km-long escarpment. They were built by Buddhists, Hindus, and Jains between 600 AD and 1000 AD. The incredible thing about them is that they were literally carved out of the mountain from the top down (so no scaffolding was required - smarty pants). Many temples were three stories tall with intricate carvings. The main temple required the removal of 200,000 tonnes of rock! Neither of us are huge history buffs but we were still amazed at the scale, detail, and longevity of the structures.

For the past six days we've been relaxing in Goa, India's Beach State. We spent five days at Arambol Beach, and today moved on to Palolem Beach (four local buses and five hours later). It doesn't feel like Real India - the small beach towns are completely geared to Western tourists, like in Thailand, with cheap beer and beach huts. Where we are now is full of European tourists and loud techno music. The first beach, Arambol, was claimed by hippies a long time ago. There were more dreadlocks, men in speedos/thongs/their birthday suits, and women sunbathing topless (in India?!?) than we could shake a stick at. Only the cows on the beach reminded us where we were.

We've been enjoying a "break" from Real India. The Arabian Sea is warm and the beer and white wine is cold. In Arambol we rented a beachfront apartment for $10 CAD per night. Randomly, on our second last night, we met a couple from Guelph, Ontario, and spent a few nights sharing some drinks and travel stories on our patio.

We're hunkering down in our beach hut here in Palolem for another three days before we keep moving south. It's nuts to think we only have another three and a half weeks here in India!

We Don't Know How To Put This, But, We're Kind Of A Big Deal...

So we are in Mumbai right now.

Walking down the street yesterday, we got stopped by a scout and asked to be in a Bollywood movie. Even though we were fresh off an overnight bus from Udaipur and tired, how could we pass it up? We got picked up down-town around 4pm and got driven to the studio lot. There we got wardrobe/hair/make-uped up. Shooting took until around midnight. We got food, water, chai, and 500 rupees each (around $12.50 CAD).

Andrea played one role, and Craig played two roles so he had to go through wardrobe twice. Let's just say that his moustache was a deciding factor in which roles he'd play. We're not going to tell anyone exactly what roles either of us played until the movie comes out.

It's called "No Problem" and stars Anil Kapoor of Slumdog Millionaire (the game show host) and former Miss World Yukta Mookhey.

For people who are not familiar with the Bollywood industry, it is the Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai. It produces more films per year than Hollywood, and has the same or greater yearly worldwide audience. Basically, Bollywood movies are HUGE here - a way bigger deal than English-language, Hollywood films.

We're excited to see the finished film and see if either of us made the cut!

Holi Moly, It's Mr. Desert!

Our next stop was Agra, home of the world-famous Taj Mahal. We lined up at 6am to "beat the crowds" but about a hundred other people also had the same idea. It was still worth the early wake-up call. The sun rising on the white marble building was beautiful, and it was still much less busy than at midday. The Taj is the "ultimate monument to love" - an emperor built it in memory of his wife who died during childbirth. In India, there are always "Indian prices" for things and "foreigner prices" - for the Taj, we paid 750 rupees each ($19 CAD), while Indians pay 20 rupees ($0.50 CAD).

Since Agra as a city doesn't have much more to offer than the Taj, we headed to Jaipur after two days. It was another city that sounded better on paper than it was in reality - it was busy and loud and probably not a necessary stop. The only neat thing we saw there was the Monkey Temple, which is exactly what it sounds like: a temple with hundreds of monkeys living around it. We even saw a motorcycle crash after being overwhelmed with monkeys grabbing their bags full of vegetables. Hand feeding the monkeys bananas, eggplants, and tomatoes was pretty cool.

After that, we went to Jaisalmer, a small town out in the desert less than 100 km from the Pakistan border. All the buildings are made of golden sandstone, including the gigantic raised fort in the middle of the city.

While in Jaisalmer, we went on a three-day/two-night camel safari. Us and our camel driver, Armand, loaded up our three camels with all the supplies we'd need and we headed out into the desert. We saw things such as the ruins of a deserted village, heaps of wild camels, large sand dunes, a castle/fort, temples, villages, and a "water oasis". Armand cooked us delicious, fresh Indian meals and we slept on blankets under a sky full of stars. It was a lot of fun, but after three days our backsides were ready to say farewell to the camels.

The first day of our safari was the Hindu festival of "Holi" which celebrates the start of Spring. It is essentially a colour festival - everyone wears old clothes and buys various powder dyes, which they dilute in water guns or just throw on each other. We were at a few small villages out in the desert during the day, so we celebrated primarily with children who loved that we shared our coloured powder. Or, they just loved getting tourists covered with dye. Who knows?

We're now in Jodhper, the "blue city" since so many buildings are painted the same shade of indigo. We toured another amazing, old fort today, the Mehrangarh fort, which is again raised above the city and provided us with panoramic views of the blue city.

Tomorrow we leave for Udaipur, supposedly the "most romantic city in India".

Since this state, Rajasthan, is home of the "Rajasthani moustache" (long and turned up at the ends), men here continue to love Craig's handlebar moustache and he gets called "Mr. Desert" or complimented on average once every five minutes as we walk around towns. Indians even tell him that he looks like a (Bollywood) movie star. Andrea just thinks it is a nice diversion from her being stared at and ogled all the time.

Picture Update

We are having real issues finding an internet cafe that has a computer that works well enough to upload pictures. There are 13 random pictures from Darjeeling coming.

Hopefully we can get some newer and better ones up soon.

Weddings, Temples, Daredevils - Oh My!

From Varanasi we travelled to Allahabad, a city which sounded interesting in our guide book. In reality it turned out to be busy, dirty, and not tourist-friendly - not our cup of tea at all. We did get to see the beginning of a wedding parade that started at our hotel. At 10pm one night there was a marching band (complete with men in sequined suits), people carrying (on their heads0 giant light-up lanterns powered by generator carts, and a man singing Hindi into a microphone. All this accompanied the groom and his family who left to pick up the bride at her house. It made Western weddings look a bit dull in comparison!

After two days in Allahabad we wanted out, and Craig did the Indian Extreme Sport of taking a long-distance bus ride (no toilet) with traveller's diarrhea. It took us two days, three buses, and 12 hours of actual bus time to travel the 350 km to Khajuraho, our next destination.

What you need to know about Indian (government) long-distance bus rides: the buses are old (really old), they're busy (we got seats but saw people sitting in the aisle and on the roof), they make a billion stops, and often travel unsealed roads which seem even bumpier without suspension. The good news is: they're cheap, and we survived.

We spent five days in the city of Khajuraho, a small town of around 22,000 people. We found it very relaxing compared to the big cities. Most people were very friendly and loved to wave and say "hello" as we passed them on the street. Our hotel was wonderful - clean, quiet, with a 24-hour restaurant that served food directly to our room or balcony. Andrea did yoga with the resident "yogi" one morning, however it mostly involved air punches (to banish negative thoughts), vigorous hip thrusts (to help improve her "fire chakras"), and lectures on yogis up on mountains and the importance of moving ones bowels.

Khajuraho is well known for its high concentration of 1000-year-old temples with intricate carvings, many of which are erotic. We saw more than a dozen temples scattered around town and were impressed with their size, detail, and beauty.

The town was also hosting a big festival for the anniversary of Shiva's wedding. It had lots of market stalls and a small midway. We went into the freak show/museum, which had jars of preserved specimens, such as a small shark, an iguana, and HUMAN babies. It was so creepy. Next we went to the stunt show, which involved standing at the edge of a 30 foot bowl made of rickety old wooden planks. Three motorcycles and a small car then drove around ON the walls, so the vehicles and drivers were parallel with the ground. It was awesome.

Now we are in Agra, home of the Taj Mahal. We plan to be at the gates at sunrise tomorrow to avoid the giant groups of people who descend on the Taj mid-day. Other than the Taj, Agra isn't all that great, so we are going to Jaipur tomorrow evening.

Just to illustrate how affordable travelling in India is, we figured out that in the last three weeks we have spent an average of $39 CAD/day in total - that is our accommodation, food, train tickets, tourist activities - for both of us. We stay in budget hotels and eat cheaply when we can - but it's great when you take out money from an ATM and it gives you your bank balance back home in rupees, and you feel like a half-millionaire!

That Darjeeling Feeling

Darjeeling turned out to be everything we hoped it would be - just colder and foggier.

We were in Darjeeling for five nights. The city sits at an elevation of 2100 m, so the 88 km jeep ride from the train station took three hours. From Darjeeling you can see the Himalayas, including the world's first highest and third highest peaks (Mount Everest nad Khangchendzonga respectively). Unfortunately for us, in the winter the mountains are often obscured by fog. We were able to get some amazing views of part of the range, including Khangchendzonga, but no Everest.

Since Darjeeling is so high up it is colder than everywhere else here. The temperature was between five and ten degrees celcius (with no central heating). Since the city is built into the hillside, we kept warm by touring around on foot, which involved climbing up all the hilly streets. In fact, we believe New Zealand's claim to the steepest residential street (Baldwin Street in Dunedin) may be incorrect after walking up some of Darjeeling's inclines.

While in town we visited a tea plantation, the zoo, and the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute. The Institute had an Everest Museum, which celebrated the pioneer climbers, as well as the Nepalese sherpas who make the trek possible. Being near the border with Nepal, Darjeeling has a large population of Nepalese descendants, and you're more likely to hear Nepalese being spoken than Hindi.

On Tuesday we embarked upon another 24-hour journey (including an overnight train) to Varanasi, where we are now. We had reservations about the city as we'd heard the beggars and touts are more aggressive here than in other cities. However, we've found it to be fairly relaxed here - or we're just growing a thick skin.

Our guesthouse is a two minute walk to the Ganges River and you can see the river from our rooftop restaurant (along with lots of monkeys who steal saris that are drying on roofs in the sun, and fighting kites). Walking along all the ghats (stone steps that lead down to the river) along the riverbank feels like a True Indian Experience. The Ganges is a sacred spot for Hindus, who believe it has the power to deliver happiness and salvation. Although the river is highly polluted (95% of which is due to cities along the river allowing raw sewage directly into the river), it still has a magical atmosphere. We've seen both wedding and funeral processions along the shore, as well as large burning ghats where bodies are cremated before the ashes are sprinkled into the river. These cremations are part of a public religious ceremony that anyone can watch. Within a 20 minute period we saw eight bodies being cremated on eight fires. Once again, out of respect, we took no photographs.

Interestingly not everyone is cremated. Children under 12 and pregnant women who die are considered to be "pure" and their bodies will go straight to heaven - so their bodies are weighted down and thrown directly into the Ganges. So no - we did NOT go into the river ourselves.

This morning we took a morning boat trip along the Ganges where we watched pilgrims who come to "Mother Ganges" to drink of her water, bathe away a lifetime of sins, or cremate their loved ones; locals also line the riverbank washing clothes, playing cricket, doing yoga, washing cows, or offering "puja" (blessings).

Our young boat driver was very informative and taught us much about Hinduism and its belief system. When he asked us if life in Canada is "a struggle", we weren't sure what to say. Compared to life for the majority of Indians, most Canadians have so many opportunities. Yet the poorer people here are generally so happy, since family and friends are at the core of their values - not money, vacations, or material possessions. So we told him that life for most Canadians is not a struggle, but some people turn their lives into a struggle by working to hard (he thought workaholics "in Delhi" are funny) or by having misplaced priorities.

Once again, India puts us in our place.

India - A Whole New Level of Travel

India: where to begin?

So far, India is the most intense place we have ever been. Ever. Delhi and Calcutta make Bangkok seem like a sweet little kitten, and put Khao San Road to shame. It is busy - everywhere. Crossing a main street is like playing Russian Roulette - every time. The roads are filled with people, children, cows, dogs, goats, scooters, cycle rickshaws, auto rickshaws (tuk tuks), people rickshaws, buses, and cars. Often streetlights don't matter. There is no such thing as "pedestrian crossings". The sidewalks are nonexistant, or filled with stalls or urinals (yes, actual urinals) or piles of bricks and sand or makeshift shacks (although we haven't yet figured out how they sometimes have power), so you walk on the street - somehow.

We landed in comfortable, 18-degree Delhi and spent three nights there. First we stayed in Majnu-ka-Tilla (a Tibetan colony) and then moved to the Paharaganj area. We braved the underground metro (crowded, clean, easy to navigate) to explore Old Delhi, where we visited the Red Fort. This giant sandstone fort was built in the 1600s, with walls 2 km long and up to 33 m high. It houses many beautiful buildings, from royal baths to halls of audiences to a mosque, which feature marble inlays and intricate carvings. We also walked around Connaught Place and window shopped in "expensive" stores (where the clothes were all still well under $100 CAD).

Two nights ago we took the overnight 17-hour train to Calcutta. What a great experience! For $38 CAD each, our train ticket included a sleeping bunk with bedding and four yummy meals (evening tea, dinner, morning tea, and breakfast). It was clean and comfortable. Our bunks were not full, but we shared with a wonderful Indian man in his 70s who loved to look at our Lonely Planet and tried to teach us Hindi, and a young Indian woman with her playful one-year-old son.

Last night we stayed at a real dive of a hotel, which was still a good value by Calcutta standards. Yestearday we walked around for hours, exploring Chowringhee and BBD Bagh areas. Today we went to the Birla Planetarium, and for $0.75 CAD each we saw a stars and planets show. Then we sat on a stoop drinking mango juice and watched Calcutta pass us by.

The poverty here is much more apparent than in Delhi, with beggars and homeless people on every street. We watched people bathing in the Hooghly River at Babu Ghat, which is a river filled with garbage (but took no pictures out of respect). We walked past many "homes" on sidewalks and in parking lots made of ramshackle bricks or tarps. We watched people whose entire day's work consists of smashing large rocks and bricks into smaller rocks to make gravel. India sure puts our first-world, Western-style "problems" into an entirely new perspective.

The food is incredible. Andrea was on the "Delhi Belly" diet plan for a few days, where nothing agreed with her stomach, but luckily that passed. Indian cuisine is so much more than what we call "curries" back home. Vegetarian restaurants are prevalant and for us two meat-eaters, it's some of the best food we've ever had. A sample of the food we've tried thus far: chai (which is just the general name for tea), dhal (curried lentils), uttapam (thick, savoury South Indian rice pancakes with finely chopped onions, green chillies, coriander and coconut), naan and chapati (breads), paneer tikka (spiced chunks of unfermented soft cheese), masala dosa (savoury crepe with spiced potato inside), and barfi (sweet fudge). And that is just the beginning!

Our friend Sami warned us about this, but it's very difficult to get used to: Andrea gets stared at. A lot. On the metro, train, or the streets, most of the men stare at her like she is a celebrity. This is with her wearing no make-up and dressing conservatively. Twice we have been asked by Indians to have our picture taken by or with them, although we've noticed others just taking our picture without asking. We're more than happy to oblige, and stop and pose with them - then we just take their picture too!

Another thing we'd read about and been warned about are scammers and touts. Within a minute of getting to the arrivals hall of the Delhi airport, when we obviously couldn't find our pre-booked taxi driver, a taxi tout offered to "call" our hotel for us to see where the driver was. Well, he called his friend who pretended to be our hotel saying we had no reservation. Luckily we knew about this scam to try and get us into a taxi that would take us to an overpriced hotel that drivers get kickbacks from - we just wanted to see the scam in action. A nice lady told us about the other arrivals hall (two arrivals halls??) where we found our real driver, no problem. In Delhi there are also lots of young men who walk beside you for a few minutes ignoring you, then eventually strike up a conversation about where you are from, then try to take you to their shop (overpriced travel agency or fake government agency, sari shop, suit shop, etc). Now we usually talk to no one and ignore all the stall owners who shout as us as we walk by - you either get hardened quickly, or get really tired. That said, we've also met some very helpful, genuine people when we've needed help - but unfortunately they seem to be the great minority.

Tonight we are taking another overnight train to Siliguri, and then catching a transfer tomorrow to Darjeeling. We are looking forward to exploring a smaller city - Darjeeling's population is 110,000, while Delhi's is 18 million and Calcutta's is 15 million. Darjeeling is surrounded by tea plantations and the Himalayas, so it sounds just about perfect.