Thailand (again)

The full slide show can be found here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/achakra/Vietnam

So after our 'hard' travels in Vietnam, we decided to go and relax yet again. Rajiv once again was nice enough to donate some of his Starwood points to our cause and we found a great little resort in Krabbi. It wasn't quite the Thai beach experience you see in the movies and read about in the papers since we were pampered, but nevertheless, it was fantastic.

The food here was tremendous. All types of cuisines, and impeccably made. I even tried foie gras for the first time. Have to say not my cup of tea.



After dinner, we believe it or not sat down and watched Shall we Dance (yes J Lo and Richard Gere). It was the 'family' activity on the resort for the night. They had 3$ asahis so why not.

In the morning, Jeeves guilted me into working out so we hit the gym. The guy who was monitoring the gym was this really really buff guy. Turns out he used to be a world kickboxing champion in some division. He had the trophy right there which he won in Vegas. Really funny guy. he taught us how to say hello in Thai. Turns out if you're a guy, you say "sawatdee khrab", and if you're a girl you say "sawatdee kaa". I dont know why he decided to pick on Rajiv, but he basically taught Jeeves the girl's way and us the guy's way,, really funny guy.



Yes the resort had its own 'baby elephant' for petting and riding. (I think its name was RaRa)

We went off to the airport to fly back to Bangkok. They had a hospitality lounge with snacks and free internet. So we sat down cuz the flight was delayed for 2 hours. I kid you not, this was what was on the screen. It was some sort of condom catch the sperm sex education game. Right there in their hospitality lounge.



I swear, I dont know why American based carriers suck SO badly, maybe labor costs. But even on this 45 minute flight, somehow they found time to give us steamed chicken with pasta and sauce. Gotta love Bangkok Air.

Below. come on.. admit it its funny.



Jeeves once again generously donated some Starwood points for us ot stay at a nice Sheraton. We go out at night, and it turns out they are celebrating the Buddhist Lent or something so most bars are closed. We decide to head over to Patpong which isn't anywhere near as seedy as it used to be. Instead they have tons of street shops with a huge market in the middle of the street. We got some fake soccer jerseys, and then Rajiv decided to buy a perpetual motion watch. We told him OVER and over there was no way it was going to work (turns out it worked for about a month hee hee). Rajiv and Saumil then managed to find a place to get a pedicure. Yes a pedicure. In my minds, they officially switched to the 'other' team right then and there.

We went back to the hotel, and Saumil had to start packing as his flight was that night to India. Saumil had brought an immense amount of candy and what not for his cousins in India. He then realized he was going to get charged a TON for too much extra weight in his checked luggage. So he proceeded to move ALL of this deadweight candy into his onboard backpack. His Jansport had to have been close to 50-60 lbs! It was a funny sight as he had to move one thing in, then another thing out, then something else in, weigh it, repeat (we got something like a fish weighing scale from the hotel). So I basically gave him moral support while he packed, saw him off and then we conked out.

The following day was Rajiv and I roaming around the historical sites. We saw a bunch of wats (temples). The famous one below (Wat Pho) has this ENORMOUS reclining Buddha.





After this, we were exhausted of 3 weeks of sightseeing, so we hit a movie called 'The Island', pretty good movie actually!


Below, I dont know why, but every sign showing exits east of the International Date line seem to have a guy running for his life.



Come on its funny.



Anyway, this is the end of our tale. Rajiv and I headed back to the United States. There is a very funny story also here concerning me on the plane ride. And well, to hear it you'll need my permission :-).

Vietnam (pt 3)

The full slide show can be found here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/achakra/Vietnam

Now the next part of the trip, I actually wrote myself an email to remember all the crazy stories. So it may not flow properly, but Im going to just paste what I wrote in my email right here so I can capture all the details without having to rewrite it :-)

anyway, so that was that, the next morning we headed out really early for sinh cafe (touring company) , we got on a bus for the chu chi tunnels, this was the most remarkable thing ive seen i think in vietnam, mainly cuz im a history buff, and this stuff amazes me,basically these are the tunnels that the VC used to defeat the americans, we get there, and the first thing we see is a video of VC propaganda, it was SO funny, of course i think im fed the same crap in the US, but not this skewed i dont think, basically they made it out to seem that the chu chi was a quiet village people, and when the americans came, they slaughtered tons of people (which we did), but then they m ade it sound like the village women/girls/boys (notice no mention of 'men' heh heh) defeated the US single handedly!, it was hilarious, it made it sound like, they would defeat the US with their valor and courage (which the VC did , but not these women), and basically did it with their barehands and guerilla tactics, no mention of russia supplying VC men with tons of weapons heh heh, the best part, they even got medals, like a 3 kill meddal, or a 6 kill medal.
and they showed the women being celebrated heh heh

anyway after that, the guy showed us a mock up of the tunnels and a system map, these tunnels were crazy, they went from the saigon river all the way to cambodia, the entrances to these things were so invisible, basically the kitchens and everything figured out ways to dissipate smoke into steam and very little so helecopiters couldn't see it, the tunnels were just wide enough for vietnamese soldiers who are smaller than americans, so even if u found an entrance, an american couldn't go in, and to go to saigon, they would get into the saigon river, to do this, they would actually dig a tunnel right out of the river bank, but underneath the water level, from here they could get into the saigon, but they couldn't be on the surface, so they would use a huge lily petal or something with a straw to breathe, and they would just float down with the current for 12 hours!, and of course they could cross the river into the tunnels systems on
the other side all just swimming underwater, CRAZY.

anyway then we saw some of the real tunnel openings etc, they had an opening, then they had this tunnel we could actualy walk in, the crazy thing was that this tunnel was actually enlarged for visitors, and we felt REALLY cramped in there, totally dark, couldn't see around the corner, very stuffy and hot , i dont know how they did it with gear and stuff, and they could go all the way to the cambodian border, CRAZY, after i saw this, i really understood why the americans lost, these people would have all died b4 letting americans win, just nuts, oh and all these tunnels were made with just a small shovel and a basket, and then the dirt would be sent back to river, or outside ..

anyway, i was quite impressed by this stuff, at the end we saw a bunch of snake wine, yes, ike wine vinegar with dead snakes in it, pretty crazy, apprently its used for some stupid thing like arthiritis or something,

also, we were told that a bunch of Vietnamese citizens filed a class action suit against the pharmaceutical companies in the US who produced Agent Orange. This stuff was REALLY REALLY nasty. The babies born to alot of parents exposed to this stuff were absolutely messed up. No eyes, limbs, completely dysfunctional to where they needed 24/7 care. The citizens lost (go figure), but that's war for u.

Ok, that's the end of my email, here's back to blogging..
Below is saumil trying to get in and out of one of the acces holes. Mind you, Saumil is a skinny guy, very skinny.. and he could barely get in and out of this hole. It was ingenious, basically Americans (being larger, even military guys who are in shape) couldn't get in and out of these holes.



One of the crazy killing devices.



Yes a scuttled American tank.



Below.. I think its obvious



We shot ak-47s.. no joke, left over from the Soviet supplied resistance to us Americans



You can't really tell, but there is a huge bomb crater next to me. I would say that its around 30 ft across, and 10 ft deep. probably dropped from a B52 bomber..



We went into the tunnels. They would literally crawl around these tunnels in a full crouch position. Honestly, Im not claustrophobic, and I knew that within 50 ft I could exit.. but it freaked me out. Its hot, cramped, humid, and you could basically nothing else but crawl and still be touching all the walls (sides and top). Now, here's even crazier, they have expanded all of these tunnels for tourists so fat people can get through. Now we ain't fat, but still,, pretty small tunnel.



Yes the crazy wine..



When we got back to the city, we decided to walk around. Went to some famous market place. Basically an enormous warehouse with tiny aisleways with ALL kinds of small shops. Saumil negotiated a chess set for his nephew in India (he was continuing onto India afterwards). As we left the market, we decided to walk down to the water front. On the way I saw some tennis courts, and of course was intrigued as I hadn't hit a ball in over 2 wks at this point. We walked in, and it was a high rise luxury condo with a bunch of storefronts in the bottom stories. I found the sales mgr and asked her how much a condo here is. After doing the conversion, i found it was 2500US/month $!!!!!. Man , I was thinking I could move here , work remotely for Oracle, high roll, but I couldn't even afford to live as a high roller in Saigon! Sheesh.

It was about time to get drinking again, so we found some sort of brewpub thing. The guy couldn't keep our orders straight to save his life. After getting a light buzz going here, we decided to go this ritzy roof top bar on top of the Hotel Caravelle. Stoli Tonic was around 4.50$ USD, we said forget this, one drink and we're out. Too expensive for our traveling selfs..

We then headed off to dinner at this really really nice restaurant called Mandarin. I can guess that this is the equivalent of Vietnam's Per Se. The food and service was incredible, and they had probably one waiter for every two people. Even live classical quartets and duets and piano spread throughout the place. Total bill? I think around 50$ for 3 people.

So, then we headed over to this bar which , well to put it lightly, turned out to be a tourist trap for people who wanted prostitutes. We didn't know until after we ordered. We immediately asked for the check, and then batted away the girls who were quite aggressive. Once they realized that we weren't here for the 'special' services, they slapped us with a ridiculous bill. They charged 30k dong for cashews! Now, that's around 2 USD which is ridiculous when the beer is around 2USD wherever you go. So I was pissed, so I asked for a doggy bag to be obnoxious, and they were being obnoxious back and not giving me one, so I grabbed as many as I could in two hands and stuffed them into my pockets. Not quite a statement, but it was as much as I could muster at the time.

So the following day we decided to walk around Saigon a bit, see some museums and what not. So below is another funny incident where Saumil was trying to grab Rajiv's boobs . There are some funny videos in the slide show.. You can see Rajiv protecting himself.



After this we went over to the old command headquarters for the south vietnamese army. Ho Chi Minh of course renamed it the Reunification Palace after his forces finally stormed it. Basically this was the building from where the south Vietnamese government operated, and b4 that, it was the site of the French Indochina governer. During the war of course, the US military sat side by side with the south Viernamese (essentially which ever dictator the US chose to put in power). It was crazy to see all of the old statistics about the facility. On this date, Ho Chi Minh's forces stormed, on this date the Americans left etc.







Below, I wonder if they have better cell reception back then than we do now.



For some reason, Im not into massages, I hurt more than when I go into them, so saumil and Rajiv went off to get massages. I went off to the war remants museum,basically pointing out US atrocities, they were of course very very sad and horrendous. Granted, its war, its just something that we're protected from in the United States by our 'fair and balanced' media. These pictures will live in my memories for ever.. Kids born affected from agent orange, people affected by dioxin, napalm victims,, of course no northern atrocities by the north vietnamese against the south were reported, again propaganda for you. Next to it was an old south vietnamese jail camp turned into a museum. The conditions that they lived under was atrocious. The way they starved people, tortured them etc. (it was areplica of their alcatraz). IT makes guantanomo look pretty nice compared to the stuff these peoplewent through.

Im sure you can read more about this guy, I dont remember the name but this is a Buddhist monk who burned himself alive as a protest against the war. Sometimes I accidentally turn the hot water and it burns. I can't imagine being able to sit in such stillness with no physical acknowledgment of it. Maybe there is some truth to the Buddhist philosophy after all and their control of their mind and needs.






So after this we headed off to the airport. I have to say on the way we saw a ridiculously beautiful lady on a scooter. Now the cab driver couldn't really understand what we were talking about but saw us looking at this beautiful girl. While we gawked at her, he looks at us and says.. 100$.. no joke..

So later that night we ended up at the airport on an Air France back to Bangkok. So when we got through airport security, we're waiting in the gate area. They finally call our flight, so as we walk up to the lady who's tearing boarding passes right b4 the ramp, she takes ours, looks at them and walks away. Im like great, now we're stuck in Communist Vietnam,, but she comes back with different colored boarding passes. We look at them and ! lo and behold, they have upgraded us to first class!. Im not sure why we got this, but Im guessing its because since I bought the ticket on my credit card with my miles account, there's a chance that it was because I flew so much with Air France in the past.



Now what was even cooler, was that we enjoyed our lap of luxury for an extra two hours as the plane was grounded for mechanical problems heh heh.

We got to Bangkok airport, and made the decision just to sleep in the airport rather than try to find a hostel at that time at night since we had a 9am flight to Krabbi (beach town in Thailand). Here we are sleeping.



For some reason, I wasn't as tired, so I decided to put shaving cream on Saumil's face.

Vietnam (pt 2)

The full slide show can be found here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/achakra/Vietnam

We then left Mui Ne to go to Nha Trang which is a popular beach resort for the rich folks of Saigon. It kind of had a bit of Vegas feel except no casinos, but on the beach. Just everyone ready to throw money away for the weekend. We finally found

Above are sand dunes we stopped at on the way. These little kids were trying to sell us rides on their foam mats. Below Saumil tried to 'carve' up the slopes, it didn't work that well.



At this point, we were getting hungry. I wasn't very hungry when we passed what looked like an ok place to eat, so me and Tooong overruled Saumil and Rajiv. Well mostly Tooong had made up his mind not to stop. So we went to Hung Phat 2, no joke. This place was prob the size of half a football field. There was at least 60 tour buses outside, and it was packed. Now, we sat down, and looked at the menu, and the first thing we see is pictures of frogs and snakes. We asked for chicken, Toong barely translated but said no we dont have any. Finally he says, ok, go over there (buffet line) grab some stuff. There was a soup (flies in it). There was a bunch of other food, I think some fishes, some other meats, I dont konw what they were, also with flies in them. The eggs looked edible until I noticed some other sort of crazy meat in there. Anyway, Saumil and I got rice, and they give some steamed veggies on the side (we didn't know what they were, but at least they were bland steam veggies). We proceeded to eat this with tons of hot sauce basically. Rajiv was bold and tried a bit of everything. We predicted he had 24 hours to live.





The road up the coast of Vietnam is beautiful. I would say more beautiful than Highway 1 in CAlifornia. Interesting, back in the cold war days, the soviets maintained a submarine base here. Its closed down now, but you could see it in the distance.



Small Vietnamese guy holding our bags heh. We were starving and immediately found food since Saumil and I didn't want to die at the restaurant on the road. We got some solid American food, pizza, followed by solid deep fried Indian Samosas heh. Then we hit happy hour. The night proceeded with some more libations. There's a very funny story here, but once again you'll have to get permission from Rajiv to hear it.



We then hit the road again, took to the mountains to go up to Dalat. Dalat reminded me alot of Darjeeling, classic colonial hill station. The French actually wanted to make this the capital back in the colonial days (their wussy selves couldn't deal with the hot humid climate down at the lower elevations :-) just kidding, or am I?). But it was gorgeous, and the temperature was quite nice. We found a place to stay and went over to a place called Cafe V. Really good fusion food.

The following day, we found an outdoor adventures placed called Phat Tire. We wanted to give mountain biking a shot. First, no one was willing to help us, but finally, the owner (turned out to be an American named Brian) said, dont listen to these guys I'll take you, but I can't take you until later in the day. So we come up with a time, and take off. To pass the time, we find these guys called Easy Riders. Apparently since so many tourists speaking so many western languages have been coming to Dalat for SO many years, there are these 'legendary' bike riders that have picked up all the Romance languages. We find a couple that speak English, and hop onto their bikes and they take us on a small precanned tour. Saumil being the bold one again (and not blacklisted in this town) rents his own bike and follows us.

The first place we stopped was a temple. I found this little sign to be precious heh.



There's Saumil following on his bike.



Im not sure what this place was. There was a hanging rope, a nice waterfall, I think it was just a nice little area to visit in general. Cool little rickety looking tree house we went up into.





The next stop was this special spinning table. They said that if you all stood around it would start mystically spin on its own. It was of course a load of bull as it was clear the guy was slowly pushing it when he thought we weren't looking.





The next stop was called crazy house, literally. Some Vietnamese went to Moscow and got her phd in architecture and made this CRAZY house literally. Loox like something out of Disney while tripping on acid.. wait, the people at Disney are probably already tripping on acid.











Below are our two EZ Rider drivers.



Now, here's another funny story which we unfortunately dont have any footage of. So if you remember, I mentioned to Brian that we would be coming back to mountain bike. We arrive there, and start biking down the road to the bike paths out in the woods. Interesting, there is a Vietnamese minority that primarily live out in the woods and actually commute via these small mountain trails. Also it turns out that, they dont look like the typical Vietnamese people that we had been around, and in fact also supported the United States during the war. However, even though we lost the war, the people here have all but forgotten the war. Obviously an entire new generation is alive now, its been many years, but the real thing to remember, is that the people aren't stuck on this issue in their history. There are some other groups throughout the world that I wish would take this model of forgetting the past because there is nothing you can do about it and moving forward. I also noticed that even though Vietnam got the hell bombed out of them only 40 years ago, their roads and general infrastructure was really really good. I compare it to India where they were never bombed, have been independent for over 60 years, and still the infrastructure is in shambles. Granted, they have a much bigger population problem, but , there's something to be said for the fighting spirit of the people of this country.

Ok back to the funny story. So we're riding along, almost in the mountains, and Rajiv (who is the most confident of us because he said he did this before) , is tearing down the mountain in front of me, and basically takes an ENORMOUS fall, lands on his back. He tries to get up, and man his back hurts bad. So we have to wait over an hour for a jeep to come, grab the bike and Rajiv and take him back to the shop. Ok, that was actually the funny part, maybe you had to be there. It was funny in a Jackass (mtv show) kinda way.

We went on mountain biking. Brian had some amazing stories. Here's a guy who had backpacked across Africa, India, and countless other underdeveloped countries. And now here he is living in Vietnam.

We got back on the road and headed off for Saigon. We noticed so many restaurants on the way with funny names (to our insensitive American selves). Here are our favorites.

hung phat
hung phat I
hung phat II (we ate there, disgusting food)
hung longh
hung thinh
nhung
we decided , when we name our kids, we're going to name them
hung long, or hung thick, or hung phat, or hung girth (yes we made that one up )

So, for this next picture, you should go and check the video in the slide show at the link on the top. So, Ive forgotten to mention this, but Saumil LOVES fruit. And if he sees fruit anywhere on the side of the road he would force the driver to stop. So one of the things he had been craving but couldn't get yet was sugar cane juice, the real deal. So when he saw this by the side of the road, he forced the driver to stop.
Anyway, you really should go and see the slide show , but there is this contraption which I was sure we would catch many diseases from. Basically u feed in the cane through two rollers which squeeze out the juice, it gets caught in a funnel which goes through a plastic tube and then empties out into a spigot into a glass. Ok, let me tell u, flies all over this thing (of course its all sugar), flies crawling inthe tube. All kinds of dirt looking particles. Anyhow, they finally ran through the machine and out comes our sugar water into the plastic bags that you see. I think it suffices to say that we're still alive, but man, that was some dirty looking stuff.




We finally arrived in Saigon, and we took a picture with our driver Toooong. One side note, we noticed that he was RUSHING to get back to Saigon. Our theory was with that he wanted to get together with his Jimmy since he hadn't seen her for a while :-).



I think this was a friday night, and Vietnam was PACKED. We had to splurge and I think pay a bit more for the hotel, but it was a higher end hotel for sure. I still liked the Empress back in Dalat better. We wanted some serious American food, we found a Cuban cafe and ended up getting pizza. It was like a Pizza rustica or something, but it may hvae been one of the best pizzas Ive ever eaten in my life.

Then it was time for the night's festivities. We went bar hopping, and literally took 75 cent cab rides from bar to bar, gotta love it. We went to an Aussie bar, which, was totally filled with Australians. We heard the bartender talking, and he was a Vietnamese guy with an Australian accent, very odd. then we realized that we couldn't understand a word he was saying, becuase he had an Austrliaan accent transposed on top of a Vietnamese accent heh heh. We asked him for fun bars to go to, but basically all the descriptions he gave us were of 'boom boom' bars which was not our thing. Finally we went to this new hot spot, and it was full of white people. But really good music! u2, pearl jam, etc.

Went to a place called Apocalypse Now (obviously a tourist trap which we didn't see coming). Had an overpriced drink there, and it was clearly a tourists place to pick up Jimmy's for hire. So we quickly tried to get out of there. At some point Rajiv started talking to a busted Jimmy in his inebriated state and we quickly forced him to polish off his drink and get out of there.

Im not sure if it was this night, and I think it was. But let me put it this way, Rajiv wanted to stay out, and me and Saumil were tired. So he says, I'll stay out, and meet you guys back in the room since we were next door to the hotel. Anyway, long story short, you'll need Rajiv's permission to hear it :-).

The next morning, Rajiv finally got diarrhea (remember we predicted he would die in 24 hours). I guess its a slow set in time.

One thing I noticed about Vietnam, is that everything is smaller, the chairs are lower, the shower heads are lower, elevators are more cramped, and we realized, its honestly for the shorter than the avg Westerner Asian man. No one is fat, so you could make everything smaller.

Vietnam (pt 1)

The full slide show can be found here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/achakra/Vietnam

We landed in Vietnam. Right after we landed, Saumil and Rajiv flew through passport control. I was set to the side, and my passport disappeared into some room. 5,10,15 mins.. I was quite scared. After all, this is the first Communist country I had visited. Finally it turned out someone forgot about me, they handed me my passport and we took off.

Below, Im not sure what Bao Dong means, but it sounds funny.



There are some east Asian comedians Ive heard who make fun of Vietnamese families and how they can fit their entire family onto a motorcyle.. well there u go..





Now, there's a funny part here that I unfortunately dont have video or pictures of. Basically ever since Saumil got to Vietnam, with scooters and motorbikes everywhere, he was going crazy saying we have to drive one we have to drive one. At first, Rajiv and I were very skeptical. Saumil had driven in India, we hadn't. We didn't even know how to drive a manual, much less a manual bike, he did. He kept on teling us it was easy etc. So finally we bought it. Now Saumil gets on this bike (on the sidewalk pointed towards the road), and who knows what happened, but basically the bike SHOT forward and ran into a car parallel parked on the road. Meanwhile, the lady who was showing me and Rajiv how to operate the scooters quickly turns around, runs over to Saumil's bike, grabs the key from the ignition, and then quickly runs back to our bikes and takes our keys out. That was probably one of the top 5 funniest things Ive EVER seen in my life. I mean seriously, my stomach hurt the next day. I busted out into hard laughter every 5 minutes for the next 3 hours. Now it gets even better. So not discouraged yet, Saumil continues to badger us about the motorbokes, so we say, go for it man, we're not touching them. We walk about 3 blocks down the corner and around and find another guy renting them. So Saumil starts bargaining with him, and all of a sudden out of nowhere, a guy comes out of the woodworks and quickly recants what happened 3 blocks away. Saumil was essentially blacklisted from renting motorbikes in Saigon heh heh.

We decided not to mess with buses and go on our own schedule, so we rented a small SUV + driver. He had a cell phone and everything, his meals/housing was all paid for, so all we had to do was give him a call wherever we were and he'd be there in a jiffy. The guys name was Toong (kinda pronouced Tooooongggg)



Our first stop was a beautiful small beach town called Mui Ne. This place was really nice and relaxing. In the ocean there was all kinds of crazy water activities going on. Kitesurfing especially.





We had aspirations to learn how to kitesurf and jump 10s of feet into the air, but, well turns out on day one, you may be able to stand if your lucky heh heh. so instead we decided to throw our money into jet skis. We went down a ways and found a guy who had a good deal. He could barely speak english until he brought his boss in. Turns out the boss lived in the Bay Area for almost 20 yrs and had worked in robotics!. Small world huh.

Now somewhere in here, there is a very very funny story that occurred in one of the resort's massage parlor next door. I wasn't a party to it as massages dont really do it for me, but only heard about it afterwards. Once again, you will have to ask Rajiv and Saumil for permission to hear the story.

We walked down the road a little ways and found a very nice little Italian restaurant. I can't remember what nationality the owner was, but he had a kinda slicked hair greasy look but was incredibly nice.



The restaurant was not only great, but extremely comfortable, and the food was fantastic (and pricey I Remember). Afterwards, he let us borrow a bunch of DVDs that we could watch back in the room.



The following day we went to see this gigantic reclining Buddha. I Think it was close to 45 meters long perhaps. There was a tram on the way up to the top and a hiking trail. We were so sore from the jet skis that we said screw it, we're going to take the tram and be lazy. Theres a funny story later about the term 'Cap Treo'. Turns out that it means tram ride essentially. And it turns out that 'Xe Dien' is basically a ride in one of those zoo/amusement park/tourist buses that go from point a to point b. (In this case, from the parking lot to the tram)







After 'cap treo'ing it out of there, we for some reason forced Rajiv to hold a pretty flower and pose.