The suspense is killing me!!

Not really. So, as many of you already know and as some of you may have guessed, I'm back in the US, Oakland to be exact. And it feels pretty good to be back. I had a great time traveling around, but I just couldn't see myself out on the road for another 2 or 3 months traveling on foreign soil, at least not by myself.

Anyway, I have no real plans now. I figure I'm still due for at least a couple more months of messing around. I'm going to stick around here until later this month and then head up to Washington for two or three weeks and then we'll see what happens.

Shoot me an email if you're around and would like to grab a beer or some eats or something.

Peace.

Railey and Bali (kinda rhymes...)

Ah, it's been a while. Sorry if some of you were patiently waiting on pins and needles to have a much needed dose of the Lukester. Basically the last month has been taken up with a week in Southern Thailand at Railey beach, near Krabi, and three weeks in wonderful Bali. I was originally going to spend a couple of weeks in southern Thailand but after just a couple of days I decided what I most wanted was to go someplace I can surf, hence the sojourn to Bali.

Railey was nice and very beautiful, but a little on the pricey side. I guess that comes with lots of tourists and getting all you supplies by boats. Loads of rock climbers and I thought about giving it a try but.....and I wasn't really in the mood. So, like I said, I hightailed it back to Bangkok after just four days there and grabbed a flight to Bali.

So far, maybe one of my favorite places. Surfed almost everyday, on an 8 foot gun shaped by Bill Hamilton no less, and chilled out a lot in the meantime. Managed to get into a guest house through a great Aussie named Jimmy (but he also goes by Slim) who owns and operates the Baliwaves.com website. Hung out a lot with an British couple, Fran and Adam and there's plenty I can tell you about them, but maybe more in person than on this public forum. Anyway, here are some pictures of Railey and Bali.

Wandered around in Bangkok and saw this sign.


And I later found out that some people in Bangkok must have some seriously hot piss.


On the boat to Railey


View from the beach near my hotel. Not really a beach on this side but on the other side of the spit is a beautiful white sandy beach. The area is basically a chunk of rocky land with three beaches that are all within about 10 to 20 minutes walk of each other.


Rock climbers galore


And some pretty cool rock formations




Part of the beach on the other side of the spit.


Locals playing a hackey sack sort of game with a Rattan Ball game over a volleyball net during lowtide. It's called Sepak Takraw, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sepak_Takraw


More cool rocks and beautiful beaches.


Boats used for hauling tourists and supplies around.


Looks like paradise.


On the way to Bali I stopped off at the airport in Kuala Lumpur for a 10 hour layover. I didn't see any of the people that might be appropriately shaped for this style toilet but I kept my eyes open.





Even Ronald catches a few waves in Bali.


I rented this board from slim for 25,000 rupiah a day. By the end I could do ok on it and it's distinct difference to a longboard makes me think maybe I should look into expanding my quiver once I get back (granted I only have one "arrow" in my quiver right now and speaking of the good ole Johnny Rice....Kevin???? Did you ever get a chance to try it out??)


I think I may have put a similar picture up from Vietnam or Cambodia or something but I really did how you can by gasoline in old alcohol bottles. And gas isn't cheap over here either.


You do occasionally see footprints on toilet seats and wonder about their origin but I guess this picture clears it up.


The view out at Kuta beach a pretty good beach break.


Kids posing on some sort of raft thing.


Adam, Fran, and I took a day out to travel around the island a little bit and first stopped at some traditional dance thing. Pretty cool with fairly elaborate costumes.


Me with some of the dancers. I'm wearing a shirt that I paid about 4 times too much for but it was still only about $10.



We were planning on driving up to the volcano the is visible from Kuta beach but the car that our driver hired started to crap out as we got to higher elevation and we weren't able to make it, but we did stop off in Ubud where there are some very beautiful rice terraces.




The old man wanted a break so I carried his load for him for a while.


Rice almost ready for the harvest


We also stopped by a temple, yeah, more temples.


And the three of us went to a beach that has great sunsets. Our driver was really funny when he said it's a romantic place but "Oh, Mr. Luke you don't have a girl. hahahaha" And then it was even funnier when he told us he'd pick us back up at 7:30 but never showed and we ended up getting a taxi back at 9. Bastard.


We watched another sunset a few days later at the beach about 100 meters from our hotel and it was probably just as good as the other one. Plus here were got coerced into buying a few things from the local ladies. Fran somehow convinced Adam and I to each get one of our nails painted. Blah.


Sunset from our local beach


The night before I left, the three of us were up for quite a while.


And one final picture of Bali from the air.

And so........I get on a plane in another couple of days and head to my next destination.....

Peace

Change of Plans

I'm no longer going to India. I haven't changed my flights yet, but I'm already planning on sticking around SE Asia until Mid-May. Going down to the southern portion of Thailand for a couple of weeks and then hopefully to Bali for three weeks.

After that I will either continue onto Europe or just pack it in and go back home. It's been great so far but I am becoming tired of the travel scene. Maybe the beaches and surf of S. Thailand and Bali will breath new life into me. We'll see.

And I will put captions on the photos next time :-)

Peace

Cambodia

Hey all. I'm back in Thailand now after spending the last few days in Cambodia. It was a short trip through Cambodia and I mainly only went there to see the temples of Angkor Wat. Cambodia has had a pretty gnarly recent history with lots of sorrow but I wasn't to up for that, so I skipped the museums in Phnom Penh. If you read Ethan's blog about Cambodia you'll probably get a good idea of why I skipped them. http://ethan-thereandbackagain.blogspot.com.

However, Angkor was super cool. Spent two full days touring around a bunch of the temple complexes. Some of them are in great shape, others are slowing being restored, and still others are slowing being reclaimed by the earth.

(I would have put a video of monkeys on youtube but I got this message when I went to the youtube website:
Sorry,
The web site you are accessing has been blocked by the requested of The Communication Authority of

Thailand.)

I've got a bunch of photos and I think I'll skip putting captions on them. Here ye go...

Vietnam: Saigon (aka Ho Chi Minh City)

Saigon. Back in the big city. Back to crap loads of scooters and non-stop noise. Hanoi actually seemed to quite down around 9 or 10 but that didn't seem to be the case in Saigon. Maybe it was just the area I was staying. Walked around the city the first full day there, visiting the re-unification palace and the war remnants museum. Man, talk about a bummer. Not a fun place to visit. Met up with Tuyet and some of her friends for dinner that night at a cool beer garden place. Also Much better than the war museum. The next day I went to the Cu Chi tunnels, a network of over 250 km of tunnels that the Viet Cong dug over 20 years all by hand. Three different distinct levels going down to about 9 meters or so. Pretty cool and not as depressing as the war museum. Hung out with Tuyet again that evening and we went bowling before meeting up with some other friends of hers, including some of the folk that played in the Bangkok ultimate tournament. More good times. The next morning I grabbed a bus and went to Cambodia. Here are pics from Saigon.

Ahh...Saigon


Went to the Fine Arts Museum and saw some Vietnamese work. War and death seemed to be a common theme.




This guy was in the parking lot outside


Here's Uncle Ho in front of the city hall


Barber shop in Saigon


Little alleyway


scooter parking


Inside the post office. Looks like it used to be a train station.


Palace of re-unification.




The couple of tanks that rolled into the courtyard of the palace in 1975, basically ending the Vietnam war.


This was my favorite room inside


But where's the poker table??? Maybe Bob could build one for them.


Replica of the Huey that took the last few people from the building in 1975.


The president's bedroom in the reinforced concrete basement.


So, the War Remnants Museum. Talk about a bummer. But at least this guy was lucky.


One of many examples of the weapons of war the U.S. used during the conflict.


Yeah, great stuff. In case you can't tell, that's a U.S. Soldier holding up the severed torso of a dead Vietnamese.


Makes you feel warm and fuzzy doesn't it? (That has loads of sarcasm in it)


Some of the many types of bombs used.


Luckily this park was just a block or two from the museum and I was able to chill out there a little while and collect myself.




And then I went to a bar called Seventeen and had a couple of beers. I'm not sure why this menu says what it does in the lower right hand corner. Must be some sort of message.


Here's a model of part of the Cu Chi tunnels. Pretty amazing what they built here.


Some of the tunnels were as small as 24" or so in diameter. You were welcome to give it a shot if you're waist size was less than 34".


One of the many booby traps the Viet Cong employed near the tunnels.


They had a 90 meter stretch of tunnel that we were allowed to crawl through. Pretty tight fit.

Tuyet and I went bowling. Don't my shoes and socks luck stunning?


The bowling alley. Yeah, I ripped it up. Broke 100 twice....sometimes I wish I could swap my golf score and bowling scores.

Vietnam: Hue, Nha Trang, and Mui Ne

Ok. After leaving Hanoi behind and sending Ethan off on his merry way, I took an overnight train to Hue. Spent a couple of nights there, bicycling around the town, and then headed to Nha Trang, where I stayed 8 nights. Didn't really do anything in Nha Trang except go diving once and eat and sleep and have the occasional beer. Caught a bus to Saigon after Nha Trang, but we stopped off at a town called Mui Ne on the southern coast and I decided to kick it there for a couple of nights. So here are some pictures from Hue, Nha Trang, and Mui Ne.

Hue

On the train again...

In the Royal Palace

Royal Palace

Royal Palace

Royal Palace

Royal Palace

Love some of the signs here.

Royal palace

Ravenous Koi at, yes, the Royal Palace

Moat around the Royal Palace

The old portion of town is surrounded by a big moat and high walls. Here's a look along part of the "moat".

Nearby Pagoda

I don't know if you can read the text, but this is the car driven by the monk that burned himself to death in Saigon in protest to the government's policy on Buddhism. This was the government we were supporting.

Little tree at the pagoda

More Pagoda

Local Hue beer

Nha Trang

Nice beach at Nha Trang but you won't be able to sit there for more than a few minutes without someone coming by and trying to sell you something. Mui Ne was much nicer for that.

More good signs. Although I'm not really sure why they even have cross walks there.

On the boat to go diving. Good diving and super cheap, only $35 for two dives and lunch.

The dive boat.

Post dive joy??

One of the two dive sites.

Port of departure and return.

Yeah, when I'm thirsty I could really use a Soft Prink.


Mui Ne

After having a crap night of sleeping because of mosquitoes I got up around 5:30 and watched the fishermen bring in there catch. Primarily squid and crab.

Crab waiting to be picked out of the net. The took all of them regardless of size or pregnancy status (i.e. carrying eggs).

Picking out crabs. Better than the people picking out lice from each others hair in Saigon.

Crabs. I'm not sure what type but they have little flipper things on their back ends, so it seems as though they swim a little bit.

Looking back towards my hotel from the beach.

Looking along the beach. Much more peaceful than Nha Trang and better weather.

Dog of an English girl I hung out with while I was there. She kept a close eye on her. Apparently dog-napping for ransom is somewhat common.

Looking out at the beach from the hotel. I'm glad I stopped here before entering back into the madness of the big city, Saigon.

Vietnam: Sapa

So, after another day in Hanoi, Ethan and I took the night train up to Sapa on a "3 day/4 night" trip. Sapa is known for it's beautiful terraced hills and the cool weather. It's a big rice producing area where six different ethnic groups live. Our trip basically consisted of a partial day of trekking, staying overnight in a hotel, then two more days of trekking, staying overnight in a village homestay, with another overnight train back to Hanoi. The Sapa area is most busy in the summer when the weather is much warmer around the rest of the country and we didn't fair all that well as it was foggy for most of the time. But still a good trip. Here are some photos.

Yeah, so I think I mentioned it was pretty foggy.


First day visit into a village. I think a family of 7 or 8 live here with not much more room than what you see here. It's pretty typical for girls to get married around 15 and have kids by 16 or 17.


Finally seeing some rice fields


An hillside view of a school

Picture from the 2nd day of a water buffalo

Our guide, Du (sounds like Zhu), uber small

Kick ass rice fields

Yeah, that's still me.

I guess there is no Home Depot here.

The calm before the storm.

Check out the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7z2wFPMcnYY

Kids at play...sort of. Ethan and I were pretty sure that's poo that they're getting ready to throw at us.

Dinner at our homestay. Maybe the best meal I had in Vietnam.

He didn't like my goatee too much and I luckily stopped him from burning it off. But he didn't really mean any harm.

Dog and Buffalo...Isn't that a Heart song?

A little better visibility the next day.

And we had to use the shitty bridge.

See, I told you she was uber small. That's Du on the far right.

One last shot of the terraced rice fields.

Vietnam: Halong Bay

After a day in Hanoi, Ethan and I headed to Halong Bay a UNESCO Heritage Site designated such due to it's boundless beauty and magnificence, or something like that. No, really, it was cool. We headed out of Halong City on a junk, went to a big ass cave, putted around the islands, went swimming, stayed the night on the junk where we learned what the name meant ("What's that scratching noise?" "Oh, just the rats"), spent the next day kayaking with our lazy as shit guide, and spent the night in a nice hotel in Cat Ba. The islands of Halong Bay are officially numbered at 1969. There are actually more, but that was the year Ho Chi Minh died, so they gave that number as the official count. Okay, here are pics from Halong Bay.

A view of the jumble of boats at the harbor

Another view as we're leaving

Over the bow and through the islands

Saw quite a few of these, many trying to sell us stuff. Man, if I had a nickel for every time I've heard "You buy something?" or "You buy from me?"

Island pics, the weather was a little crappy, mostly overcast.

Inside the big ass cave. It was well lit with walkways, which sort of took from some of it's mystery.

Me, trying to sell the cave.

The back-up of junks dropping people off and picking people off. Luckily this was by far the most congested area we encountered.

Our room was ok, beside the rats and the lack of power.

Upstairs wasn't too bad either, especially after we took control of the Karaoke machine. I think I have a future career. Regardless of what contrary proof Wes may have.

Sun setting, sort of.

Next day, I think.

Fishing village. Some of these people hardly ever step on Terra firma.

Fish farm.

Fishermen.

Lunch on the beach after kayaking. The kayaking was pretty cool and I saw the biggest jellyfish thing ever. I didn't take my camera with me in the kayak though.

Our smaller second day junk.

Gourmet lunch on the beach.

View from our hotel roof out at the bay at Cat Ba.

Disembarking for the bus ride back to Hanoi. I almost said home, but Hanoi is definitely not home.

Vietnam: Hanoi

Ok, it's been a while and I don't think I can sit and recount all of Vietnam at once so I'll do it in chunks. First is Hanoi. Ethan and I arrived by plane from Vientiene on the 2nd of March and did a couple of trips to Halong Bay and Sapa (to be covered in other posts) while based out of Hanoi.

Even though we got off on sort of a wrong foot, almost got scammed by a taxi driver from the airport, I liked Hanoi. It has some character, maybe a mix of rough and soft. All the crazy scooter traffic (but I hear Saigon is twice as bad) contrasted to the french type buildings and tree-lined avenues. Anyway, we stayed there a total of about 4 or 5 days and here are some pictures from Hanoi.

Crap, I almost forgot about the noise. I guess I'm getting used to it. Honking, non-stop honking. Luckily the city/town shuts down pretty good around 10 pm or so and quiets down, but it all starts up again in the morning around 6 am. Loud and obnoxious.

So to start this off, you can view this little video of an intersection crossing in Hanoi:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0Rxp0o5X1w

Temple in the center of a lake in the Old Quarter

Stuffed Tortoise and little girl in lake temple

Another temple at lake's edge

Scooter parking

Ho Chi Minh Museum

And Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. And we did see his embalmed corpse and it was weird, very weird.

Old fighter jet

Me and Stalin, two peas in a pod

Nightlife in Hanoi is fraught with danger. Dodging scooters, trash fires, and jump roping girls.

Picture from Museum of Ethnology (or, as Ethan would like to think it should be called, Ethanology)

52 distinct ethnic groups in Vietnam. Here are a couple of the types of dwellings one might encounter when visiting one of said 52 ethnic groups.

Tomb....hmm what are those carvings of people doing???

Ahh...boom boom.

Good ole' uncle Ho.

Ho Chi Minh's original home moved from his village to Hanoi

Hard at work

Some weird bird thing

Mmm...Grilled pig's prick

Typical side street in Hanoi

Thanks Jerry!

Jerry left a comment and made me think that I should put a link to Ethan's blog and pictures somewhere in here....so here..

http://picasaweb.google.com/ethan.ahlberg

http://ethan-thereandbackagain.blogspot.com/