Rafflesia in Asia

The area's most popular attraction, the world's biggest flower, was next on our list. Although we had to cough up some dough to take a tour into the rain forest to see the Raffleasia, it was well worth it. First of all we got to ride in an old 4x4 Land Rover (Paul's dream car), then we went off- roading on an extremely bumpy and muddy path into the forest. The one and a half hour hike into the rain forest was great (although we were with 10 other people) and filled with giant bamboo, ginger plants, distant calls of the Gibbon monkey, and lots of towering trees. After crossing a few rivers, we finally arrived at this day's sighting of the giant flower. It looks like it could be a part of the mushroom family - its rubbery thick petals blossom out from a central hollow orb filled with rubbery orange spikes. They grow to be about 1 M across, the two we saw weren't quite that big, but impressive nonetheless. The flowers start as a small brown ball, and without its own roots, it feeds and grows on other vines, therefore it can be in the air, on a tree, or on the ground. It takes about seven months for it to bloom into this massive red flower, which then only lasts seven days. Because of their short life span, the tour company pays aborigines to find a flower every day for that days tour, we were lucky and saw two.

Strawberries and Tea

Our next stop on the Malaysian peninsula was the Cameron Highlands. We stayed one more day in Tioman than we had planned, and decided we better head up to the mountains to cool off for a few days. We opted for the highlands rather than Taman Negara, the country's rain forest, after we heard that it is rare to see any big wildlife and the cost of a guide and overnight stays was too high for our diminishing budget.

By far the chilliest place in the country, where the temperature never exceeds 80 degrees, the Cameron Highlands is a vast jungle covered mountain range (not too tall though, only about 1800 meters), and a popular escape from the steamy lowlands. Luckily we were there during the week and escaped the hordes of Malaysian tourists on holiday.

We arrived by bus at 3AM in Ipoh, took a two hour taxi to Tanah Rata and slept on a few couches in the outdoor lounging area of our soon-to-be hostel (until we were woken up by the morning buzz of travelers). Since our room was not going to be ready until noon, we picked Public Enemies to watch out of their selection of 1,000 movies and waited. After finally getting a room, all we wanted to do was sleep, but with enthusiasm to take advantage of what the highlands had to offer, we drank some caffeine and got on with the day.

This climate is ideal for tea bushes, therefore the hillsides are dotted with tea plantations, Boh being the most famous. We took a four kilometer walk through the hilly plantations where thousands of rows of tea plants blanket the rolling hills - it looked as if the mountains were covered in thick green corduroy from the 60s. The tea plantations had a similar grace and graphic quality as the rice terraces in Vietnam. We took a short tour of the processing factory, where we saw how tea is pressed, fermented, oxidized, and dried. Because this plantation is nestled between the mountains, plucking leaves isn't yet mechanized, so the leaves are being trimmed by locals with knives and big baskets on their backs filled with tea leaves. After drinking a few cups of tea on a terrace overlooking the farms, we hitched a ride back up the steep road to town.

And not only is the climate ideal for tea, but also for strawberries, which we haven't seen since we left the United States. And there were strawberry farms everywhere - in our town you could get strawberry ice cream, strawberry scones, strawberry naan, strawberry shoes, strawberry umbrellas, etc. We visited a farm and tasted some homemade strawberry ice cream, and it was heavenly!

The Beach.

From the instant we stepped off the ferry, we knew it was going to be hard to leave this place. The island, about 20 km long and 10 km wide, has a few towns dotting the west coast and a rather isolated tropical east coast. The narrow, northern tip of the island has a rocky shore with a jungle interior and as you move south the spine of the island rises into a small set of vegetation covered mountains. Although the island is geared for tourism, there are still a few native residents living outside of the tourist's eye, along the coasts untraveled by ferries. In the budget backpacker's town (dubbed ABC), we never felt we were in an overly touristy area, and the locals running the few guest houses and hotels met us with genuine kindness.

We stayed in a simple bungalow a stone's throw away from the crystal clear water, and the best spot to snorkel was right in front of our hotel. A perfect setting for a 26th birthday. Although we didn't do much for Paul's bday - ate a lot, swam, lazed on the beach (we attempted to play bad mitten but our rackets fell apart) and had a few happy hour beers with our neighbors- it was a perfect way to ring in a new year.

The island is known for its snorkeling and diving, some of the best in Malaysia due to the clarity of the water and the 233 species of fish and 183 species of coral flourishing along the coast. We rented sets of snorkels and fins and dove into the water. We could swim about 300 feet away from the coast and still see the ocean floor, the clearest water we've seen yet. With goggles on and snorkels up, we swam with schools of tropical fish and over clusters of neon coral (some spiky or with fluttering tentacles, others like big brains coming out of the ocean floor). We saw several sting rays gliding over the sand, barracudas, alligator garrs, clown fish, rainbow fish, jelly fish, and even a giant angel fish (about 3 feet high). For the next few days we spent several hours floating above this wild marine life.

The land wasn't so bad either, we had several visits from the local monkeys and saw the famous six foot monitor lizards. The entire interior of the island is a largely untouched jungle. With our neighbors, we did the hike across the island, 9 km each way (and really steep in both directions) to the isolated beaches of Juara on the east coast. Although completely exhausting, it was rewarding and exhilarating. We made it back in time for the 5-7PM happy hour and a delicious pineapple pizza.

The restaurant associated with our little cluster of bungalows was the best on the island. We pretty much ate a combo of fish and chips and vegetable curry the whole time we were there - and never got sick of it!

Almost to Paradise

From Luang Probang, in the middle of Laos, we went on another few day trek to the southeastern tip of the Malaysian peninsula.

We had to catch a night bus headed for Vientiane. We arrived to the capital city sleepy and pretty hot, even at 6AM. After a croissant and a few mixed fruit shakes, we perked up slightly and made a plan. We had only a half day to see any part of the city, bags in tow - so as the temperature started to soar, we decided the best option was the... swimming pool (and it was only a $1.25 each). We practiced our dives, did a few laps, cleaned ourselves up, and headed for the airport.

We arrived in Kuala Lumpur at midnight and left at 8AM the next morning for the East coast island, Pulau Tioman. Needless to say, we having nothing to say about the city itself - at midnight the place was shutting down, and at eight o clock the city was only beginning to wake up. After a five hour bus ride to Mersing from KL, and a two hour ferry into the South China Sea, we arrived on Pulau Tioman, at 5Pm on May 5 - just in time to spend Paul's birthday on the beach.

Luang Probang

Luang Probang sits at the merging of the Mekong River and Nam Ou river with the picturesque mountains/karsts hugging the perimeter of the town. It is a postcard perfect city (small city though, only about 50,000 people), filled with boutique hotels, French bakeries, and chic bars! Despite the expensive side of this stop, it was charming and well worth it.

We visited a Buddhist temple from the 15th Century that had a famous tree of life mosaic and an impressive collection of the royal family's religious decor - a variety of Buddha's and a golden 'float' used in the king's funeral parade. And to our delight one of the carved golden dragons jutting out from the front of this float had a nice size ball of sticky rice in its mouth (quite the offering). In the courtyard, filled with orange robed monks, were the tombs for a whole line of the royal family.

We explored most of the city by foot in two days, and while zigzagging our way down the peninsula, which ended at the intersection of the two rivers, we decided the city's architecture had a similar feel to New Orleans (a New Orleans filled with Buddhist temples).

With a significantly warmer temperature than the northern mountains, Luang Probang's many cafes were a popular hang out (although some to chic for us). We did enjoy the fusion of French, Western, Thai, and Laotion food on all of the local menus. If we were eating meat, we could have splurged for a Laotian bbq, where you are your own chef. Most restaurants had stone tables with a small fire pit in the center that would be fired up for the customer to grill their own feast...it sure smelled fabulous. This is not the only time our vegetarian will is was almost broken. But, we definitely couldn't beat the one dollar baguette sandwich stuffed with cheese, veggies, and topped with mustard (a novelty here!), sold from little food vendors who seemed to come out of the cracks to line the street every night. We ate a baguette for a midnight snack in the courtyard of our small hotel.

We stayed in a French style old house with dark woodwork and beautiful hardwood floors. Although we stayed in the budget part of town, the narrow streets were lined with similar colonial buildings.

Tropic Thunder in a Sawng Thaew

The day we left, just like every day we spent in Nong Khiau, there was a tropical thunderstorm. Normally, I would love every second, but today it was just humorous considering the "bus" tickets we bought landed us on a sawng thaew, Lao for a converted pick-up truck with two benches down either side of the bed (with open sides). The two of us, two Japanese travelers, and 16 locals, along with bags of rice, giant boxes, chickens, roosters, and pigs piled in and got cozy. Luckily the rain didn't last too long (although long enough to soak our bags) and the ride was only three and a half hours to Luang Probang, otherwise our tolerance probably would have deminished. We've learned over and over you have to bear every situation with a smile otherwise you would make yourself miserable. It was a great experience in the end, although a test of endurance, and everyone on the bus was super friendly (and just as uncomfortable).

A Simple Life

We settled into a family run bungalow, the friendly owners, the playful little children, and the puppies drew us in to this spot, and of course the five dollar price tag. Once we took our backpacks off, it was a major relief, we had been traveling for three whole days to reach this spot and we were ready to stay put for a few days.

Trekking, tubing, kayaking, and fishing were all popular activities in this town, but without an ATM our lack of funds drove us to stick to the free options (meaning hiking, exploring the town, and hanging out at the bungalow watching the massive thunderstorms). We took a hike one day along a path that followed the banks of the river for awhile, then meandered through several tiny villages. The first village was a cluster of wooden homes on stilts with woven bamboo walls. It seemed as though a town meeting was happening as we passed through, or maybe it was just lunch time, because the whole town seemed to be gathered in the center of the village, except for one lone guy taking a shower at the public well to the side. A few kids turned to stare with big grins on their faces, yelling 'Sabaidee!' As we kept strolling on this hilly path, we passed people farming on some of the hillsides, unfortunately most Laotian farmers still practice slash and burn farming, leaving some of the landscape burnt, brown, and barren. And again, everyone we passed gave us a warm smile and yelled to us from the tops of the nearby hills, really reinforcing the friendly, unjaded personality of the local people.

After the sun came out and a blister of my foot started to form, we retraced our steps back to Nong Khiau. A group of young boys carrying a banana leaf stuffed with something to show us what they were transporting, and one of them opened his cupped hands to reveal a bunch of crawling black beetles - considering how big the banana leaf was they had enough to prepare a bug feast for twenty people!

We had some wonderful food while we lazed around this town, Lao red hot and green curry (with sticky rice), and there was also a great Indian restaurant so we revisited some old favorites. The best restaurant had hammock seating, cheap mix fruit shakes, the best curry, and the owner's three year old daughter may have been the cutest girl ever. She was the perfect marketing tool - she would lead you to your seat, bring you menus, pretend to take your order, and since she loved us, she kept us company for hours on end.

Sabaidee Laos!

We had been told how friendly and laid back the Laotian people are, but didn't quite believe it until we got there and it was a whole different environment then Vietnam. You pass people on the street and you get a strong 'Sabaidee' (hello!) with a broad smile and a wave, from adults and children alike. The difference between Laos and anywhere else we've been is that you often have to beg people to work, whether ordering food at a restaurant or trying to get somewhere in a tuk tuk. The two of us and a Spanish couple were told the boat to Nong Khiau would leave at 9:30AM, then when they could only round up a few of us to take the boat, the boatmen told us that it was too expensive, we should just take a bus - but, after begging them to take us, we negotiated a price and left a few hours later. We climbed into a thirty foot long wooden boat, only about four feet across, which was colorfully painted, with a driver in front and a motor in back, and we slowly made our way downstream to Nong Khiau.

The ride was scenic down the Nam Ou river through the karsts of NE Laos, the banks were dotted with tiny villages, naked children splashing in the muddy river, and loads of water buffalo with their heads just surfacing the water. Along the way we stopped at a few villages, picked up more passengers, bags of rice, and a few chickens. They shared their lunch with the four of us - sticky rice, a spicy black dip, and some sort of root vegetable (which looked like a leek but had a bland flavor similar to a potato). Sticky rice is made by placing steamed rice in a bamboo box, which almost solidifies the grain, turning into none the less than sticky rice. And, like a roti in India, it is used as a utensil or dipping device. You rip a handful out of the communal pot, squish it around in your hands, rolling inbetween them (as if you were making a clay coil) and when the rice is formed into a firm enough ball, you start layering it with flavors.

After switching boats mid way, we landed in Nong Khiau, a small town of a few thousand locals, and in the current low season, just a handful of tourists. The town cradled both sides of the river and was nestled in between the towering karsts covered in jungle vegetation.

Two day journey to Laos

Our bus ride from Sapa began with a chorus of vomiting Vietnamese people behind us, motion sick on the steep and windy mountain roads. Luckily, after a few hours we had to switch buses to go to Dien Bien Phu, where we would spend the night and start the second leg of our journey to Laos. We than took a smaller local bus for the following ten hours. The road was being built as we drove, literally, and the bus had to stop for all sorts of rockslides, landslides, and construction. And not only where they constructing a road, but a dam system on the river we followed for most of the juorney. It was amazing that our bus made it through the muddy rutted roads, where the mud would be as deep as the tires on this little bus. But, we put aside the overcrowded bus, the construction, and the bitchy Canadian girls sitting next to us, and enjoyed the stunning beauty of the northern Vietnamese mountains.

We stayed in Dien Bien Phu, the city where the French were finally defeated by the North Vietnamese in 1954, for about 8 hours. After a nights rest that felt more like a cat nap, we took another grueling bus ride at 5AM. As our small local bus pulled around the bend of the mountain, it jerked to a stop and we were told to get off the bus and walk. Once we started walking, we realized why - a bulldozer was making the road. So after crossing the border by climbing down giant piles of rubble, we got our Laos visas, the bus arrived two hours later after the road had been opened up and we were on our way. We were finally in Laos!

The bus dropped us off in Muong Khua, a small village hugging the banks of the Nam Ou river, where the electricity only comes on between 6 and 10PM, the houses were on wooden stilts, and where ATMs and computers didn't exist (it felt great to escape from all of that, except that we had very little cash at the time...). We met a bunch of travellers headed to Vietnam that gave us some much needed tips about how to wisely use our short time in Laos, tasted Lao Lao (local whisky, famous among travelers in the region, and dirt cheap) for the first time, and swapped stories. Not a bad introduction to the country.

On top of Vietnam

We found that more often than not in Vietnam, you are promised something that doesn't deliver. We bought some expensive train tickets and were shown pictures of a few luxurious coaches, complete with down comforters and flat screen TVs, but that wasn't our train - although it was comfortable enough and we shared our little cabin with some nice Australian women.

We arrived in Sapa really early on a Saturday morning, realizing that it truly is a town in the clouds, and with the dense fog came a bone chilling temperature. On the weekends the small town of Sapa is filled with Vietnamese tourists, so finding a place to stay wasn't very easy, even at 7AM. As a last resort, we booked the cheapest place we could find, which wasn't going to be ready until 6PM, left our bags and dragged our tired bodies around the town.

Sapa overlooks an expansive valley of rice terraces and the tallest mountain in Vietnam, Fansipan, some of the most impressive views we have seen yet (that is when the fog was light enough to see it). The surrounding mountains are home to several minority hill tribes, a lot of them H'mong people. Many village women and children, dressed in traditional embroidered dresses and hats and heavy silver jewelry, come into Sapa to sell their embroidered fabrics and to find foreigners that will pay them as a tour guide to their village. Although most are very friendly, their constant selling spiel got tiresome. Maddie ended up buying a few pillowcases because she promised she would in order for the woman to leave us alone.

We never hired a guide, but we did plenty of hiking through the valley. The most interesting was a small path that wound its way through some villages where we were able to get a closer look at the terraced hillside. Some of the levels were the brilliant green rice paddies of the southern fields we saw near the Mekong, others were muddy and being plowed by water buffalo and a few men. Above the terraces were fields of corn, almost vertical on the sides of the mountains. The villages were comprised of timber framed wooden homes, lots of chickens, roosters, pigs, and little children running around.

We hiked by day and relaxed by night - there wasn't much to do after 8PM once Sunday rolled around and the tourists all left. The bia hoi in Sapa was always filled with village people in traditional dress, which was a funny sight. Even the women drank beer, a rarity in Asia, and it was fun to sit and try to talk with them, although communication was difficult and mostly unsuccessful, but they were all very friendly.

Sapa also had an intense meat market, whole pigs, de-feathered, chickens, and the occasional quartered dog, which is a big part of the local diet (although we never tried it). The streets were lined with not only local handicrafts, but booths of fake North Face coats, backpacks, and gear. We broke down and bought a coat, considering everything in our backpacks was meant for 100 degree weather.

Rock the Cat Ba

We headed a few hours east of Hanoi to Halong Bay in the Gulf of Tonkin. Most people take a tour from Hanoi to the bay and Cat Ba island for a few days, but we were really happy we didn't - although we traveled with a tour group to the island, which reinforced our decision. The boat we paid for was supposed to include a trip to the caves and a stop at Monkey Island, but it didn't, and the angry little Vietnamese guide was not letting us off the boat with rest of the people on the tour (and after smirking at his antics, I was even told "No Smiling!"). But regardless of the grumpy tour guides and the partying Canadian crew we shared the boat with, the scenery was breathtaking. More than 3,000 vegetation covered islands rise out of the waters, making it quite a natural marvel. After the four hour boat ride, past islands, caves, and floating fishing villages, we arrived at Cat Ba, the largest and only inhabited island of the bunch.

The mountainous island was covered with a jungle that was straight out of Jurassic Park - it was absolutely beautiful. And to add to it all, we stayed in the nicest hotel (since India) yet for only $9 a night, including a beautiful view of the bay filled with fishing boats and the surrounding islands. That night we ate a pineapple pizza, had a bia hoi with some new friends, and watched a Vietnam War movie on HBO, it was a perfect evening.

We battled between biking the jungle interior of the island, or kayaking the open waters, but we jumped at the opportunity to explore some of the tiny islands just off the shore by kayak. We started in Bat Bao harbor, on the other side of the island from our hotel, and it didn't take us long to learn a few things about sea kayaking. One, we should have rented the more expensive kayak with a rudder so we could have navigated the waves more efficiently, and two, its not a great idea to try to paddle onto a shore that is filled with rocks and increasingly larger waves as the tide begins to grow. Once we got close enough to realize we needed to turn around from this tiny beach, it was too late, and the waves slammed us onto the shore. It took some team work to push ourselves out past the breaking point of the waves, but we finally succeeded after a few tries.

Like everywhere else we've been, we could have stayed a few more days enjoying these tropical islands, but we headed for the mountains by train the next night.

Hanoi

After spending three days in Saigon, we booked a cheap flight to Hanoi and decided we had to skip the middle of the country. Two weeks in Vietnam is not enough time to bus hop from the south to the north. And although bus trips are always interesting, it was nice to change it up with an easy flight. We arrived in the capital city in the afternoon, checked into a decent hotel in the old quarter and with a few hours of day light to spare, we set out on foot. Avoiding all moto taxis and cyclo drivers begging for some work , we meandered around the market lined streets. Each street seemed to have a different theme - hardware, clothes, sheet metal, cooking supplies, and more likely than not almost every store sold the exact same array of goods.

We ate a typical meal in Vietnam for our vegetarian diet, fried noodles and vegetables (we seem to be alternating between that and fried rice with vegetables, which are often the only two vegetarian items on the menu), but we have given into eating salads and fresh spring rolls, and after not eating any fresh produce for so long, salads are heavenly.

And it was in Hanoi that we finally tried the draft beer that we have read and heard so much about, and it is probably the cheapest beer in the world, 5000 Dong a glass (or 25 cents). Bia Hoi (draft beer in Vietnamese) is on every corner and filled with locals at all times of the day, at least until the keg runs out. And these men can go through pitchers of beer in nothing flat - it puts Americans and Brits to shame. You can spot these watering holes by the blue and yellow plastic chairs and tables - all only about a foot off the ground - and a keg in front. I did read that the shorter the chair in Vietnam, the cheaper the beer, and this is about as low as it gets. It is a similar setting as the pho stands, the traditional noodle soup, which is the cheapest food in Vietnam. We only tried pho a few times due to its inherent meat qualities (but if you get an English menu or an English speaking waiter you have a better chance of ending up with a "veg" meal). But on a chilly day, the rice noodle soup will warm you right up! And most people eat it for at least two meals a day.

Hanoi has a very charming feel to it, with lots of remnants of old French architecture, some still filled with grandeur, others showing their age. But, just like Saigon, it is filled with motorbikes, which make crossing the road a little more treacherous (but we have become pros), and which also makes sitting outside at a cafe a little less appealing with a constant buzz of traffic. If time allowed, we could have easily spent more time here, but we booked a bus/boat to Cat Ba island in the famous Halong Bay.