Ha Long Bay and Luang Prabang. Yay!

Hello and Welcome back to the Gabe, Feesh, and Lip show!

To bring everyone up to speed we left Hanoi and Ha Long Bay about 3 days ago and are currently in Luang Prabang in The People's Democratic Republic of Laos. Just a note before we get into the meat of this post the Water Puppet Show in Hanoi was very entertaining and had some lovely music.

Before leaving Hanoi we spent a day in Ha Long Bay, which means "descending dragon" bay and was also featured in the 1997 James Bond film "Tomorrow never dies." Needless to say, Ha Long Bay is beautiful. When we got there, we were shuffled on to a cool decent-sized wood and iron boat and cruised around the hundreds of huge green rock islands. Our first stop was at a floating village where we were able to pick out what we wanted for lunch fresh from the sea. Lip and I each picked out a nice little crab with blue claws for $2 each, which was lovingly prepared by the staff of our boat and was delicious.

After lunch we had the opportunity to get into a small wooden boat and float through some of the smaller crevices and networks of the islands and see a few of the more secluded areas of the bay. We finished off our trip by exploring one of the caves in the islands. It was really pretty inside with a few areas of scattered light shining in from cracks in the walls of the caves. Our tour guide was also quick to point out a few notable rock structures in the cave specifically the "fairy nipples" and the "woman with the man under her dress."

We flew to Luang Prabang in Laos the next day, which brings us to here. Luang Prabang is a small town in the northern part of Laos and despite the overabundance of temples, it's hard to believe it used to be the capitol. Nonetheless, the town is amazing and it is our favorite place so far. The people here are very friendly and unlike all of Vietnam honking is not allowed on the roads, which is a stark contrast to all the places we've been to so far.

Our first day here, we saw a sampling of the temples and checked out the night market. We had some delicious grilled fish and chicken in the market as well as some water buffalo jerky and doughnuts. The next day we took a cooking class at a restaurant called Tum Tum Cheng which is the name of the monks' drumming in the morning and afternoon. It turns out the chef that taught us, Chandra Vongsalavanh is world renowned and was one of the 86 chefs from around the world chosen by the Smithsonian to represent their country's gastronomy. Not only was the cooking class fun and delicious (we now know how to cook several authentic dishes), but we were given an entire lesson in Laotian culture, buddhism, and monastery life in Luang Prabang by the chef. He also invited us to give alms to the monks the next morning and we jumped at the opportunity. It was a little hard to wake up at 5 in the morning, but it was worth it to see over 500 monks streaming down the main road. Before the monks rolled through our chef friend dressed us in a nice sash, which I am sure has some sort of symbolism or history unknown to us, and gave us each some sticky rice and bars to give to the monks as they passed by. The monks will only eat 2 meals during the day all of which is gotten from donations during there collections, however the monks pray for good fortune and long life to those who give them alms in the morning, so it's a win win for everyone. It was a good experience and a nice tradition to participate in.

A few hours after the monks, we headed off on a trip to the elephant village. Obviously in the elephant village, we got to ride elephants. Elephants are big, very big and they are awesome to ride. They took us down a path and eventually into the river where we rode the elephants (as in sitting on its bare neck with knees behind its ears) up the river and back to the camp. It was really fun when out of nowhere our elephants started to pick up speed and run down the trail. Mine slowed down after it stole a jack fruit from someone's garden and the mahout (elephant driver/rider) eventually slowed down the other elephant. Once we got back to the camp safe and sound, we were able to feed the elephants. The elephant's trunk is an amazing thing and it's impressive how tightly it can squeeze a banana when it wants the one you're holding. Additionally, one of the mahouts was wearing a vikings shirt, however when we asked him about it, he didn't know what we were talking about. Oh well.

From the elephant camp, we had a nice 3 hour hike through the forest with a short stop at a poor farming village. We eventually made it to the Tad Sae waterfall where we were able to swim in the cold blue mountain water and have some lunch. We took a nice speed boat ride back up the river before heading back to town.

All in all, Luang Prabang has been great, but we will be flying to Chiang Mai in Thailand and I am sure we will dissapointed.

Until next time,

The Wolf Pack

Halong Bay

Michael has crabs

Classic Gabe in Halong Bay cave

Gabe and Danny are FABULOUS

Land Ahoy

Luang Prabang cooking class

Iron Chefs

Gabe keeps Michael warm at the Tad Sae waterfalls

Giving to the monks for good Karma

Danny is not a crook

Night market in Luang Prabang

Michael's birthday suprise

No hands 

Our feast

Pig parts in market in Luang Prabang.  Notice the congealed blood at right.

Mmmmm, pineapple

Mahout (elephant driver) wearing a Vikings shirt.

Dong Jokes and Tailored Suits

Hello everyone,

We have been in Vietnam for about 10 days now and needless to say we are running out of jokes (almost) about the Vietnamese currency, Dong. I invite everyone to post in the comments section the best joke they can come up with pertaining to Dong. The winner will receive a prize (maybe). If you need an example: Is that Dong in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

Anyways, we are currently in Hanoi, the capitol city of Vietnam, and left Hoi An a few days ago. Hoi An was a cool little town, but I swear there were more backpackers and tourists there than Vietnamese people, which was kind of strange. Nonetheless, Hoi An had tons of cultural sites to offer from Assembly halls to Temples to really old houses. Additionally, it just so happens that Hoi An is teeming with cloth/tailor shops all offering custom made suits, coats, dresses, et cetera at incredibly reasonable prices. It was a pretty funny scene in the tailor shop seeing all these dirty, sweaty backpackers (us included) trying on such fancy-shmancy clothing.

Hoi An is also about an hour away from the My Son Ruins (pronounced Mee Sun), which were originally Champa Hindu temples. The Champa were originally from India and the ruins were filled with plenty of cool carvings and statues of Hindu Gods such as Shiva, Vishnu, Ganesh and Rama. The ruins were located in a valley surrounded by beautiful mountains and it just so happens My Son means Beautiful Mountain (not just a clever name). We also learned about Linga and Yoni which is synonymous with Yin and Yang and represent the male (Linga) and the female (Yoni). They had several statues representing the Linga-Yoni (which I won't go into too much detail about due to mixed readership), but for those that want some sort of example, the mountains represent Linga and the valley represents Yoni, according to the tour guide at least.

Hanoi is somewhat of a mystery to Gabe, as he has spent the majority of it living in a 5 star luxury hotel nursing his stomach flu.  The city is based around a few big ugly green polluted lakes that at night seem to be the equivalent of our Lake Calhoun. Michael and I (Danny) sat on a curb where there was some pop music playing, and in a matter of seconds a flash mob of old ladies started doing an aerobics class beside the lake. Michael demands to eat meat off of skewers and has now officially had sugar cane juice in a bag. It was average. Michael and I became quite popular with the local young teenage girls, as every few minutes they would come by and ask to take a picture with us. Michael was a giant....comparatively.

While Gabe was at home sick, Danny and Michael were in real danger when crossing the streets. The streets are completely saturated with "motobikes," and the only way to cross is to walk very slowly through the street and hope that the bikes swerve around you. There was an open night market which was very busy and selling shlach for bad deals.

We are seeing a water puppet show tonight that came highly recommended from Ayla, which we are sure will be great. Tomorrow we have a trip to Ha Long bay for one day, where we will stay, and soak up the ray(s).

Rollin down the river.

Gabe and Feesh try to cool off from the hot Hoi An sun.

Gabe and Michael eat Pho in the market.

Feesh sits cross-legged.

My Son ruins with the tallest "Linga" mountain in the background.

Feesh and Gabe on a bridge in My Son.

Local art gallery. No explanation needed.

How do I "measure up?"

Swimming in the South China Sea.

In front of one of the many assembly halls in Hoi An.

Gabe and Michael in front of the Japanese Covered Bridge and poopy water.

Linga and Yoni

Michael enjoying a Bahn Bao. Mmmm. Note: we needed to chase down the Bahn Bao bicycle cart  (which we did 3 times) to get these.

The Wolfpack at the My Son ruins.

Any one else gone to the beach lately?

Ritual sacrifice at the My Son Ruins.

This is not 'Nam, there are rules.

Xin Chao,

We have been in Ho Chi Minh City for a few days now and will be leaving for Hoi An (a colonial town in the middle of the country). Today and yesterday we hit up most of the main attractions of the city including the Independence Palace, War Remnants museum, and Cu Chi tunnels.

The Independence Palace was pretty cool, but it was not nearly as interesting as the War Remnants museum. The War Remnants museum is basically a testament to all the terrible and atrocious things we did during the Vietnam War. Obviously, like all history, it needed to be taken with a grain of salt, however it was captivating to see propaganda from the other side of the war.  There is some sort of saying that goes "history books are written by the victors," but it's amazing how much seemed to be left out of our textbooks in high school. One of the more shocking exhibits there was an entire room dedicated to victims of Agent Orange and Dioxin. It seemed to be more of a hall of horrors than anything. I don't mean to downplay the affects of Agent Orange, as it has ruined thousands of people's live, but many of the deformities in the exhibit were diseases and disabilities that happen commonly Agent Orange or not. They also had some captured American tanks and jet planes which were pretty awesome to see along side the communist tanks.

The Cu Chi tunnels are one of the maze of tunnels the Viet Cong used during the war (to battle against the war-mongering Lyndon Johnson, his war of American aggression, and his army of "American devil soldiers")  and we had the pleasure of visiting them today. Honestly, these tunnels were not meant for American-sized people and it was a pretty tight squeeze not to mention the heat, humidity and insects that were awaiting inside. In fact, the tunnels were designed to keep us broad-shouldered Americans from sneaking into their base. Pretty much we realized we would not have lasted very long in the Vietnam War. Additionally, Danny and I got to shoot a rifle which was pretty sweet and a

Now for the most important part of the blog: what we have eaten so far! We have had Pho (noodle soup) for about 3-4 meals including breakfast this morning. Considering we have only been for about 6 meals that's a lot of soup. I'm not going to lie, Quangs is pretty good, but they do tend to drop an entire chicken liver in the soup for you here (at least I think it's chicken liver). The most interesting thing we have eaten so far is probably crocodile spring rolls, which unsurprisingly tasted like chicken. Danny had hamburger helper, but in his defense he did think he was ordering soup.

We will update more once we get into Hoi An or Hanoi (probably anywhere between 3-6 days from now). Enjoy the pictures below.

Danny in the Cu Chi tunnels, (finally a perk to being not so tall).

Due to the exchange rate, Gabe makes it rain dongs. We are now all millionaires!

Gabe finding his communist roots.

In front of the Independence Palace.

"You shall not pass!"