Goodbye Vietnam

Like a fat kid with a fresh pizza, we have conquered Vietnam. Throughout the last three weeks we have traveled thousands of kilometers and left very few stones unturned. We went to the mountains, the beach and the cities. We traveled by boat, plain, bicycle, motorcycle, tuk-tuk, bus, train, taxi, van, and foot. We said “no” each day to approximately 6210 offers for a “moto” ride, 740 taxi rides, 590 post cards, 380 bowls of soup, 200 scarves, 120 wallets, and 60 offers for “hashish”. Vietnam is a country where you are never more than ten steps away from a hearty bowl of beef noodle soup or “Pho Bo” as long as you can handle squatting on the crowded sidewalk next to a massive boiling pot and thousands of motor bikes. It is a country where Amanda and I found ourselves ditching the hiking boots and renting motor scooters wherever we went. It is an incredible way to get past the tourist trail and truly see the country side. Vietnam is a country where, unfortunately you can trust very few. The meter on the taxi moves twice as fast as the car, the prices suddenly double after your tour is done, the “last train” is actually the first train and costs three times what the local ahead of you just paid. While this certainly wore our traveling souls thin, it was our only complaint throughout the extended visit. Only in Vietnam will twelve dollars get you a beautiful hotel room for the night and seven dollars will buy you three good meals with beer for dinner. And only in Vietnam will you find those amazing conical straw hats that turn every scene – whether city or country, into a beautiful photograph. Vietnam has been great. It is a bitter sweet ending indeed. Laos is next. Aside from streets filled with monks, we have no idea what to expect.

Halong Bay

The middle of Vietnam has become a great memory. We cruised the coast by motorbike in Nah Trang. We burned our tender skin on the beautiful beach in Hoi An. We wandered through ancient streets and alleys and shared rice wine and prawns with local families on vacation. We stood in awe at the chaos of local fish markets. We had clothes made to fit at the very touristy tailor shops. We wandered tombs of ancient rulers in the old capital city of Hue. We rode bicycles through the friendliest of neighborhoods. Amanda’s camera has been busy indeed. After a day in Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam, we headed to Halong Bay in the northeast of Vietnam.

Halong Bay, with its beautiful limestone karsts, is an absolute must see for anyone traveling to this part of the world. Nearly two thousand islands rise from the sea in a truly stunning display of nature’s ability to produce the most beautiful scenes imaginable. Our boat slowly maneuvered through the maze of silent giants for hours on end. Our cameras snapped their way through memory cards and batteries. The islands rise from the sea in grand fashion with thick jungles looking like a full head of hair on handsome heads that stare into the crowded bay. We anchored the boat and explored further by kayak. As we navigated through multiple caves and marveled at the beauty from a closer perspective, the grandness of it all was truly humbling. We spent the first night in a bamboo bungalow on one of the secluded islands. The second night was spent among the karsts on our boat. We are now back in Hanoi awaiting an overnight train to the mountainous region of Vietnam’s northwest.

We've Been Published!!!

It all started with a phone call. Now I am on the cover of a magazine with Amanda as the photographer. The spring issue of Diabetes Forecast was released on May 1st to bookshelves and its 4.4 million subscribers. You can find our article online at http://www.diabetes.org/diabetes-forecast.jsp. Amanda is a professional photographer in Tucson, AZ specializing in Weddings and Portraits. To see more of her work visit www.AmandaPetran.com

To download our article click here

Just like Vietnam

Here we are. This is the controversial country. While many Americans our age strategized and struggled to stay out of Vietnam some 40 years ago, Amanda and I have now converted our hard earned dollars to Vietnamese Dong to see its sights and live its life. Despite many battles in many wars with many nations; in spite of the legacy of unexploded ordinance, Agent Orange birth defects, and a severely depleted population; even though the communists took control of a united Vietnam in 1975, it has transformed itself into a thriving and beautiful capitalist gem in the heart of Asia.

It is a small and leaky wooden boat. The barefoot man standing behind us has just ignited his 6.6 horsepower engine. Attached to the engine by way of a five ft long rod is a small propeller. It is 5 o’clock in the morning and we are motoring down one of the many rivers that connect with the mighty Mekong in the Mekong Delta region of southern Vietnam.

Skip ahead 2 hours to the floating markets of Phong Dien. This is interesting. Someone decided to place the produce section of Safeway in old wooden boats. To our left a woman in the typical Vietnamese garb of loose pajamas and a conical staw hat stands on her small craft filled with pineapples as she rows past a 30 ft long wooden vessel. This particular vessel, along with every other boat, appears to have looked old before construction was completed. It also is motivated by a propeller at the end of a long steel shaft with a hand controlled diesel motor guiding its load of lettuce deftly through this crowd of edibles. On our right a floating cold beverage stand motors by. An ice cold sweet melon tea quenches the thirst of a young Vietnamese man on his break. Shortly thereafter he resumes tossing hundreds of coconuts from his small boat up to the larger one he is tethered to. It is huge and crowded and it is beautiful.

Fast forward another 2 hours. After motoring through the small canals Amanda and I now wander by foot in confusion. Our driver has pulled over and begun to sing karaoke at one of the small houses facing this busy route of commerce. And we can’t help but wonder if the world might be a better place if we all took a ten minute break at 9 am every day to sing a few national hits.

Then we are in Ho Chi Minh City or Saigon as most of the world knows it. Thousands, no, millions of scooters buzz around us. Rather that run, we train ourselves to deftly maneuver through the swarms of Africanized Moto Bees crowding the narrow streets. The key is to keep one steady pace and like a finger in a fresh bowl of jello, they move around us. The War Remnants Museum is wonderful and devastating all at once. The American instruments of war are scattered about in the form of tanks, bombs and airplanes. None of which could stop the north. To be an American has never felt so confusing after staring at hundreds of war images and reading dozens of sad stories. We feel sorrow to know that history often repeats itself.

Yet, this is in the past and Saigon is a bustling metropolis. It also has a slow bus to Dalat where the weather is cool.

Now place Amanda on the back of a motorcycle, her arms raised at her side as she copilots her craft through the strawberry fields, flower farms, coffee plantations, rice fields, and forests of central Vietnam. The Easy Riders have become world famous for their English spoken tours of Vietnam on the back of a motorcycle. It was a beautiful ride indeed.

Fianlly, as though tearing off yesterday’s joke from my page-a-day calendar, we race down the mountains back to the coast in the city of Nha Trang; one of Vietnam’s many beach resorts. We couldn’t resist spending $4.5 dollars to rent a motorcycle for the day. Today was very hot and wonderful, just like Vietnam.

10 ways to know you're in Cambodia

1. Everyone is smiling. The children, the old men, the drivers, the business-people all walk around with beautiful smiles. It is a great morale-booster that brings us a wonderfully warm feeling towards Cambodia.

2. Crossing the street requires the deftest of skills. Any leftover Frogger aficionados will truly bask in the pandemonium and complexity involved in this once simple pedestrian maneuver: One step forward, three to the left, five forward, three back, right left, whoa…hurry, hurry hurry, tuk-tuk, Lexus, truck, car, moto, cyclo, run!!

3. Hot!! Humid!! Hot!

4. If walking is not your cup of tea, Cambodia has you covered. Whether riding on the back of a scooter, sitting in a trailer behind a scooter (tuk-tuk) , taking a taxi or being pedaled around, there are always dozens of options awaiting as you step outside. Last night I woke up and took a tuk-tuk to my bathroom. It cost only 25 cents for a 10 ft journey.

5. Angkor Wat, the oldest temple in the world will absolutely blow you away. It and the many surrounding temples may possibly be the most incredible ancient architecture still standing in the world.

6. Beautiful children. Possibly the most beautiful of any country we’ve seen.

7. Favorite game in Cambodia: How many people can you fit on a motorized vehicle? 5 on a moto - no problem; 40 in the back of a truck -next challenge; 8 In a taxi - you want 4 - everyone pays for 2 spots.

8. Naked babies everywhere

9. People surviving despite their past. With Pol Pot’s reign of terror only 28 years in the past, every Cambodian was directly affected by the over 1.8 million victims of the mass genocide that occurred between 1975 and 1979. His goal was to create a world of un-educated farmers and he killed anyone who was not. It is one of the saddest histories you will find in a country yet the Khmer people live on with smiles, humor, and a persistence to push forward.

10. If the weather does not raise your internal temperature, the food will. Mild is hot, hot is face-numbing. Fish, ginger, peppers – the Khmer food is a wonderful delicacy.

It was a brief but wonderful visit to this country of impossible contrasts. The people are genuine, their government is not. The capital of Phnom Penh is lively, it’s history is anything but. Cambodia has raised the bar in Southeast Asia. Our next stop is Vietnam.

The Temples of Cambodia's Angkor Wat

Don't Cry For Us Argentina

Yes, it is true; Argentina is in the rear view mirror for us. It was a land of beautiful people and incredible beef. Only in Argentina can you swear on your life that “this is the best steak I’ve ever had” every time you order it, no matter how many successive nights in the past the exact same words were uttered from the same lips. Only in Argentina can you find the highways littered with elaborate shrines to national heroes routinely visited by passers by and pilgrims alike. Only in Argentina can you find Leighton and Amanda making such a fuss with the police that they talk them down from jail to a $300 fine, to a $30 fine, to “have a nice day”. It seems the insurance card expired the day after we rented the car and fortunately it only cost us an hour on the side of the highway speaking broken Spanish to the police until they left us alone.

Leaving Argentina meant more than simply saying goodbye to another country. This was our last South American Country and the mid-way point on our journey. While it had its ups (did I mention the beef) and its downs (run-ins with the law), Navigating its highways and roads uncovered some truly wonderful experiences for us. Perhaps better than any other country we have visited; we were able to see it as more than just tourists. We camped, we drove, we stopped, and we talked. It was a country that begged to be explored as it keeps so many gems hidden from plain view. Such was our favorite stop – La Cumbre, a small town barely mentioned in the guide books.

Farewell Argentina. Hello Los Angeles?

We flew to the entertainment capital of the world for a two day layover on our way to Asia. Though we visited with my family and spent a day lounging at the pool, we were able to squeeze in some sightseeing. Amanda and I had always thought L.A. was big, dirty and crowded. After visiting South America it has never looked so good.

After our two day vacation from our vacation it was back to work as we boarded our Bangkok-bound flight. Twenty-four hours later we were getting buckets of water poured down our pants as we hauled our tired, hot, sweaty bodies with large bags attached through the streets of Bangkok searching for a hotel with A/C. It was the last day of the Songkran or Lunar New Year celebration and much to our horror – lots of water is involved. However, water is not so bad when it is 95 degrees out with 90% humidity.

We are now in Cambodia to see the famous Angkor Wat jungle temples (anyone seen Tomb Raider?) We are excited to be in such a new and different parcel of the world. We have 6 weeks in Asia and no itinerary – it should be quite a ride.