in the meantime, here's some more random out-of-order pics for you!
skulls in the killing fields, cambodia
laughing is not allowed in the prison museum, though i dont know how anyone could
city monkey, phnom penh
the grilled bananas in cambodia are salty and tasty
the reclining buddah in bangkok - it's a biggie
hanging out in thailand
we went down to soi cowboy for some beers in bangkok
at one of bobby's favorite restaurants in chiang rai thailand
me and bobby at the white temple outside chiang rai
ok, breakfast is calling me, not sure what it will be today but going to wander around the banks of the mekong here and find out.
ed at the cambodia border. i'll post about the bus service later, and the border crossing. it's really easy.
our private pool in cambodia
the killing fields outside of phnom penh. there are actually hundreds of killing fields in cambodia. this is just the largest site. that memorial is entirely filled top to bottom with human skulls.
this morning bobby bo gave us driving lessons and we're tooling around town on motos now. WHEEEEE
ed outside bobby's house - the locals think he looks hilarious. so do i.
sitting in an internet cafe with ed, sipping a latte and relaxing, after our morning lessons in SE Asia motorbike riding.
we left bangkok around 4am, and got to chiang rai around 8am
today and half of tomorrow is for hanging out with my brother bobby bo
internet connection in cafe is, of course, not strong enough for flickr. sorry blog-fans, it's been a bit of a rough one here, but what can you do when you're in the middle of the rice paddies.
chiang rai is sleepy and quiet, very nice after our marathon buzz through bangkok
ok, just a quick note before i sleep (which i haven't done much in the past few days)
dinner at thiets was awesome
lots of good treats
then, as i mentioned, we left vietnam and rolled into cambodia
which was great
then we flew to bangkok
where we've been eating a lot of fun things
and we havent stopped moving since we showed up here.
speaking of which, i gotta go get my 3 hours sleep before the flight to chiang rai.
i promise to fill in all the details of the above stuff soon. just never spent any time in this hotel on the internet, bangkok never sleeps.
xo
I have no flickr so no photos today. Boo.
But, here is a quick run-down of what we have been up to, until I can get some photos. The photos are good, can't wait to show you.
We went to dinner at Thiet's house, he put on a big spread of Hot Vit Lon, Hot Cut Lon, Banh Xeo, some rice soup, etc. Hung out with his in-laws and Nam, laughed a lot, had a good time
Then we woke up and caught the morning bus to cambodia.
We're in Phnom Penh, and love it. I'm really glad we decided to do another run-through of this city after last year, because I really enjoy everything here and it's a great place to see and hang out. I'll talk more about it later - it's peaceful and calm and friendly and smells great and the food is awesome and everything is colorful. And, we're staying in the best hotel in the world.
So far we've come into town, met a great driver, ate a lot, swam in our private pool, visited the: Prison Museum, Killing Fields, Central Market, Wat Phnom, National Museum, Royal Palace, Silver Pagoda.
Right now I'm sitting by the pool, drinking an Angkor, checking the internets on the lollypop, and resting.
Tomorrow we have some more time in the city to hang out, then we're off to Bangkok.
last night we went to the first of Mien's wedding parties
there was a lot of entertainment and singing and dancing - most of which i got on video.
then we were treated to a six-course meal, which was amazing.
and then, everyone left. immediately. the reception lasted exactly 2 hours and as soon as everyone finished the meal the place emptied faster than you can say "Một hai ba, yo"
so, we went to hein and bobs with the rest of our evening
this morning
we headed out of the hotel and stayed in our own neighborhood
because there is a Pho24 right across the street from our hotel. normally we never eat in chain restaurants or places like this... but this stuff is seriously good so we had to get a least 1 bowl. also, being right across the street is super convenient for breakfast (thinking about it for tomorrow also... :)
then we wandered around the area to sort of walk off that giant bowl of delicious
i wont start blabbing about it now, but saigon is changing. a lot. and quickly.
after our walk we came back to the hotel, changed, and then hopped in a very nicely provided Phonak van which took us through the rain
out of town
to phonak to pick up a bunch of other people
(witness my crappy back-seat photography!)
and to mien's wedding, pt 2.
there are 2 wedding days - one for each family.
apart from some changes to the dancing and singing entertainment, the 2 events are pretty much identical
we got to hang out with ly!
which was fun, haven't seen her since switzerland.
again we feast
our table mates, and the tables around us, were a lot of fun.
this is the sort of party where our beer-experience pays off
because around these guys the glasses are instantly refilled, and when they say "YO" you'd better empty it again
everyone is super friendly, the food and the karaoke were fantastic, and our ability to kill countless glasses of saigon red beer made for a great time
but again, 2 hours, bang, done. a big crowd of people crossed the street to go to the other karaoke bar where we were, but we got back to saigon to change and get ready and go to benh tanh market to buy flowers and rambutans
because we had a very, very good dinner to get to.
ok that's all for now, it's 12am and i've got a morning bus to catch to phnom penh.
The last thing I showed was breakfast with Mien yesterday. After breakfast we headed over to the Benh Tanh market to get ed some jeans ($15 for levis 501) and some new sunglasses
i like looking at all the fruit stands in the markets
Then Mien took off, because he had to go get married, and Ed and I headed over to the backpacker district to see about our bus tickets
vietnam reminds us of stefan sometimes ;)
we got our bus tickets from the meekong express - we took them last year to phnom penh too
we're taking the 8:30 on sunday, tickets are $12 each to phnom penh
once we had our tickets we sat down at the santa cafe (the backpacker area is really touristy, as the name implies) and killed some 333's and people watched
i got some new "ray ban's" from a lady on the street
then we walked around some more
we haven't bought any durian (the fruit being sold above) yet, but we will soon. ug. but, gotta try it eventually.
lunch was bun cha at a nice place sort of off the beaten path
then we headed back to the hotel to get changed for mien's wedding
i'll have pictures of that soon, and whenever we hit a better internet connection for uploading, some great videos.
right this second i'm resting in the room before heading out for mien's wedding part II
travel blog headquarters.
i'm using our new dell inspiron mini (we call it the lollypop, because of those dang commercials) - and it's pretty sweet. i wonder if we can get a dell sponsorship for our blog. ;)
i'll try again tomorrow, i'm jetlagging pretty good :)
today was good, lots of walking and a vietnamese wedding and tons of food and beer. and we bought our bus tickets for cambodia.
goodnight!
let's start at the beginning!
airplane food.
we flew JAL, which while not as great as it was 2 years ago, is still pretty nice.
as nice as a couple flights totaling 22 hours can be.
we laid over in Narita, Tokyo, and of course had two bowls of tasty ramen
which was one of the reasons we chose the flight with the tokyo layover
then beers in the airport at Kirin City bar
we got to the hotel at around 10:30 pm
we're staying at the Indochine Hotel in Dist.1, a block from our favorite bar. Apart from the bats crapping in our bathtub (really), it's a very nice place.
Our friend Mien was waiting for us at the hotel when we showed up, and after dumping the backpacks we all hopped in a taxi to go eat
fans of last year's blog will remember Hot Vit Lon - also called Balut. This is Hot Vit Lon fried and served a couple different ways. Excellent with a 333 on ice
food served with safety pins = awesome
we ate clams, giant snails, little snails, more duck eggs, soup, it was a huge meal. and we had a lot of 333.
we had a great time with Mien
then, crashed at the hotel in jet-lag exhaustion.
this morning, Mien called us up and asked if we had breakfast yet... nope! so off we went again
PHO. one of those things you just crave constantly once you've had it. this was great, we ate on the side of the road by benh tanh
this is a great place for breakfast.
although not really designed for ed... still good though
so.. yea, we've been pretty much just eating since we got here.
I have more stuff that we did today to post, but right now we are going to go see if our favorite bar is open, and then tonight is Mien's wedding...
more later!!
We are in Saigon. We just got the internet in the hotel room working, so I'm just making a quick post to say
we're here, and it's fantastic.
we've been hanging out with Mien and eating everything.
If flickr uploading works on this connection, i'll have a photo post later tonight.
Right now, we're off to the backpacker district to get our bus tickets for sunday and to see what all is going on over there, maybe eat some goat.
really. it's a goodie. when it starts to get dark, that's what gets me :)
i'll be there... in 1 week... with a cold 333 and some good friends.
The entries for Vietnam and Cambodia are all better, fixed, back. Hooray.
I'll start entering the Japan stuff on this blog soon, so it's all nice and consolidated. It'll be fun for me anyway, to go through all the Japan stuff again.
Meanwhile, our September trip is shaping up really nice. We have several plane tickets, and last week we booked 2 nights at my favorite hotel in the world:
And, I get to see my brother at his place in Chiang Rai... Would you follow this kid into Burma?
I ask you.
More later.
Before me and chubby started traveling around the world, we started small.
We loved to go to the desert, and went every year.
these are old pictures, before we had our trusty canon G9, and some are actually (gasp) film pictures badly turned digitial. nonetheless.
( click here to see )
^the monkey says you should check it out.
Just hit "Previous 20 entries" up there, or click here
The last day I got up early thinking to go to Bern - but decided at the last minute with the rain and the cost of the train ticket to go shopping in Zurich instead
wandering around zurich, early in the morning, dodging delivery trucks, is kinda nice.
I found a whole street of old vintage booksellers, and got a good print from a natural history book for cheap.
I also saw these and thought of my girl kelly at home
wandering around without a map to see what i can run into, sometimes you just see a lot of stuff like this
in zurich behind every quaint cobbled street there's the rest of modern life - concrete and cars
eventually it started in with a good solid switzerland downpour, and i hid in the starbucks for about an hour to wait it out with a tasty drink and "the quiet american" which i've been reading and enjoying here (already re-read two of my favorites: "sicily enough" by claire rabe and "everything is illuminated" - nothing like the movie they made from the book)
the rain slowed and i wandered back out to try to find the comic shop i saw on my first day - i found it, and this was the first thing i saw when i walked in
you gotta be kidding me. (oh, elfquest...)
i really tried walking around and shopping more, but up and down the hills in the rain on wet cobblestones with soaking wet ballet-flat shoes... i gave up and headed back to the train station. that, and i couldn't justify buying lunch when i knew i had perfectly tasty leftover marco-pasta in the fridge in the hotel room
mmm, figs.
then, i finished all the packing because i knew i wouldn't have another chance to
soon, leo came to get me and we headed back to the tapas restaurant for some more margaritas.
it was quiet because of the weather, so leo's friend enrique uncovered one of the big spanish jamon legs
and sliced us up a huge platter of the stuff
SO GOOD. oh man, really, that's good stuff.
later, another platter mysteriously appeared from the kitchen
which we did not argue about one bit. the little olives were amazing. after that, a bit of bread, and 2 fresh and delicious mojitos, we headed out to meet everyone for dinner
me, ed, leo, stefan, scottie, markus and his wife, and bjoern sat down at 'the greatest cordon bleu restaurant in the world' - and it really was
i got the "baby" size, because of the jamon appetizers i got, and it was still huge (it's not even on the menu, it's for sissies - but i ate it allllll it was amazing) - but here in this dingy bar/restaurant they make a range of cordon blue in sizes up to the "fat tire", which is like a whole cookie sheet - and they are all perfect and tasty and everyone overeats.
at one point, roli came running in! he's busy with getting the rowing team started but had to come have a 'goodbye beer' with us
me and my guys
roli had to go quickly, but we all sat here for a while and had some drinks
if they set your coffee on fire before they give it to you, it's gotta be good
then, we moved to another bar, which was a little... fancy? it was really a wine bar i think - and on a quieter night, on a different occasion, it would be lovely to sit and have a bottle or two - it's a nice place - but as the night went on we were starting to get a little sad, so we moved to someplace with a little more energy. back to the good old nelson.
hanging out with stefan and leo, prolonging the inevitable as long as we could, but around 1:30am i thought, i gotta go to the train station soon... so out into the street for hugs and goodbyes.
hotel-train-airport-munich-ohare-home
what can i say? i'd try to summarize, but i'm really too sleepy and a little sad and my thoughts are jumbled over everything i've seen and done the past 2 weeks.
i guess i'll say - there will be a few little posts on this blog here and there for the next few months - and then we'll be back in business in september as chubby and i head back to southeast asia for another whirlwind tour, more old friends, more food and drink, more of the good stuff.
Day 14 was spent lazy around rapperswil, resting, eating some kebab, and walking around to the rose gardens I hadn't seen before
and just walking around rapperswil when it is in full bloom is beautiful
later, after a coffee and reading, i got some postcards to fill out by the lake while watching the swimmers.
it was very hot out
I also had to pack, bah.
In the evening, chubby came to the hotel and we went for another quiet dinner at Marco's.
Let's see...
kasekai in miyajima
nameless shack in angkor
cafe des amis in hoi an
duck soup in phnom penh
and now, Marco's Pasta Bar in Rapperswil - added to the list of my favorite restaurants in the whole world
The best sauce man in the world is a quiet guy in switzerland, who appears to single-handedly run his entire restaurant with very few words but very precise movements and grace. I had a sweet fig sauce and chubby had a curry-churizo blend - both great.
after dinner, a sunset walk
back through old town
where in the rathaus the windows were thrown open and a choir was singing out over the cobblestones
to the Nelson for a Guiness, to bed.
I'm now getting ready for my 15 day, which probably won't be posted until sometime sunday, US time.
Three and a half hours of non-scenic highway driving behind trucks and through tunnels later
we got lost in Bulle (they speak french there!)
found our way out of Bulle, and finally saw Gruyere
which is a walled-off city on a hill in the middle of a valley
you can't drive into the city, you have to park at the bottom of the hill and walk up
we made it!
hooray
then we made a mad dash though town to find the reason we drove here
finally, finally here, wanted to come here forever, now i'm here, hooray
but first
across the street is something i've wanted to do before i even knew the museum existed...
i have arrived
the giger bar in gruyere
look! there's old local guys hangin' out, just like any old dive! i love it
so, we sat here and had a beer for a while, and then crossed the street to the museum
where you can't take pictures, but anyone who is familiar with the work of H.R. GIGER can well imagine what it is like inside the museum. It's great. I loved seeing the originals, as well as giger's own private art collection on the top floor. Some rooms are just completely overwhelming. The man's a genius.
back on the street, we're starving, so we settle nicely into a huge lunch of Gruyere Cheese fondue and white wine
so good
then we wandered around town a little
before deciding we needed one more drink at the giger bar, i mean, since we're all the way in gruyere and all
"delicious alien coffee". i have no idea. it was good and green and strong.
then, about four hours of non-scenic highway driving behind trucks and through tunnels with one rotten traffic jam that left us on the highway standing for 40 minutes later
ed, stefan, roli, and sonja are waiting for us, and it's miller time
hanging out on Leo's balcony
dinner is on the balcony, a great fondue with fish and meats
then, just relaxing and hanging out
me and my two-weeks-eating-in-switzerland "meli beli"
the sun went down and i said "Leo! Bandoneon!" and he said "ok!"
which is difficult to play after a long day driving and then several glasses (bottles) of wine
so a switch to the guitar was made
<
sharing the very last Pierre Cardain ciagarette, ever (they stopped making them)
iphone maniac
it was a good night
In the evening, Stefan came and picked up me and ed and we drove to Luzerne for dinner
we walked around, had a great kebab, and then drove back.
quiet and nice.
luzerne at night is awesome.
roli roli roli
took the day off of work and came to get me at 7:30am, and it was pissing rain and kinda gross, but really I didn't mind - it's interesting driving around in the clouds!
long drive, lots of tunnels
we parked next to a river that was the color of ... i dont know... green ice. so strange.
then we went through a scary tunnel
got onto the tiny wooden footbridge
and saw the canyon
roli wanted to show me "really switzerland", and really, this is exactly what i wanted to see - the insides of the mountains, the bones
the water was so loud.
speaking of waterfalls, (not this one), for you sherlockian nerds out there, this place is very close to where Holmes plunged to his doom (sort of) with moriarty.
(roli is burning me a cd of all the photos he took, he takes great pictures)
from there, we drove up. up up up.
to see the dams on top of the mountains
the roads have a lot of snow to deal with
I'M ON TOP OF THE WORLD!!!
and i'm starving. let's eat.
mmm bratwurst.
then we headed into the pass, which is probably the best hour-or-two drive you'll ever have. i'm amazed they built a road here. it's in really the middle of nowheresville mountain land, long, winding, and perfect
laughing all the way down the mountain
this was another long drive. i didnt take so many photos because i was just staring around kinda soaking it all in.
back in civilization, we have to pull over to figure out what's wrong with leo's stupid tomtom thing.
ratza fratza
hey i wonder what they make there
back on the road, roli takes me to bodmerenwald area - like a nature preserve, farm area, mountain pass, and generally quiet place off the beaten path. roli was excited to bring me here because this road is closed during the weekends to cut down on traffic and tourists and all.
where you turn in
2 lanes. sure.
Ladies and gentleman, i give you:
my Julie Andrews moment:
everybody sing together now...
roli had heard that i was amazed by the blue water here, so he really wanted me to see this lake while i could
there is nothing wrong with your screen - it's really that color.
it's difficult to photograph
and quiet. there was one guy on a little boat fishing, and the sound of an occasional cowbell, but really it felt like there was no one around for miles.
from there, we wound around back into town and back to Jona, where roli keeps his boat.
at the lake, we cracked a few beers and hung out for a while
then started getting ready to be joined by the other guys who were coming to the boat
the guys showed up just in time to help out
then we set out
sonny took over driving and the captain crashed by me for a while
soon we were at the island
settled into some beer and some fresh fish
"do you think it's going to rain?"... "no, i dont think so"... "it might rain"... "nahhh"
if it's not going to rain, we should have some more beers and some sausage
here comes trouble
swans are bastards, and swans with babies are really bastards
ohgod they're gonna get us
the famous "island coffee" i've heard so much about. it's really, really good. Grand Marnier.
of course, halfway through our coffees, it started to rain.
back to the boat, we gotta go
when it rains in rapperswil jona, it RAINS.
but while roli was closing the boat we stood in the pouring rain and had another beer anyway.
and eventually we all just gave up and ran laughing for the cars, it was raining so hard
later, while waiting to dry off, me and sonny debate $10 Walgreens aviators vs. PRADA.
so, me and roli had an amazing day, and my brain is fried with everything i've seen - really yesterday was like switzerland from the top to the bottom and all in between. we had a blast.
now, naptime. maybe later a kebab, relaxing in the hotel. it's cold and raining still - i might go to zurich this afternoon for shopping, or just chill out and eat some nommy pasta dinner in rapperswil.
tomorrow is another long day, lots of driving, good plans.
So we had a quick lunch at the hotel. Then she headed back to Zurich, and the airport, and Saigon.
Then, naptime.
Later, I took the train to Stafa and met the boys and we went to have dinner at the home of a friend of Stefan's.
nice back yard and garden to relax in with some good wine
good food
tuna, lamb, horse steaks, and i dont remember what the one on the far right is.
Ritchie and his wife are great cooks - I ate a lot. Horse steaks are tasty, the tuna was delicious, and that was maybe the best piece of lamb ever.
with home-made ice cream and a good grappa for desert.
later, a beer at the Baren, a beer at the Nelson, and sleepy time again.
(the Baren serves murphy's. the Nelson serves Guiness. The battle rages on)
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