Home Again, Home Again (Been There, Blogged That!)

We arrived back home late in the evening of July 25, tired after our 36-hour journey and wanting nothing more than a comfortable bed to curl up in.  After sleeping that night, we woke up not quite sure what we were supposed to do  now--how did this life we had returned to work, after all? 

During our 24-day journey to the other side of the globe, we saw and experienced things that will forever change the way we view the world.  We saw people and things that were so unlike anything that we had seen before; yet the similarities outweighed the differences and we were left realizing that, in the end, we are all brothers and sisters inhabiting this fragile place we call Earth.

Please allow us to share some insights:

• When travelling from a developed country to a developing country, forget every preconceived notion and expectation that you have brought with you and be prepared for the unexpected.
• A smile truly is an international language.
• People can be content and even very happy with much less than most of us believe possible.
• IT'S REALLY HOT IN SOUTHEAST ASIA!
• Nothing makes a mama prouder than seeing her firstborn living in a land across the sea, talking to the local people in their own language and thriving in the joys and challenges of a new life in a new place.  Nothing. 
• When shopping on the streets of Southeast Asia, never pay the full price.  Bargain--it's a matter of principle!
• IT'S REALLY HOT IN SOUTHEAST ASIA!
• There are many different types of government across the world--some of which we have traditionally rejected as wrong and inferior.  However, people are more than representations of a political ideology.  They are grandmas and grandpas, moms and dads, aunts and uncles, sons, daughters and friends--all simply trying to make a living and do the best they can.  Politics is usually the last item on their agenda, if they have time to have such an agenda at all.
• IT'S REALLY HOT IN SOUTHEAST ASIA!
• Everyone should travel to a place where they don't look like anyone else--and where little children giggle at the sight of us funny looking creatures.
• To quote a bit of graffiti written on the wall of a coffeehouse in Phnom Penh:  "The world is a book, and people who don't travel read only one page."

It has been a life-changing, mind-blowing, heart-expanding voyage.  Thank you for sharing it with us.

--The Sparrows

Singapore!

Now that we'd added Wei to our band of merry travelers, we were picked up by Wei's father, George.  Acting on Wei's suggested itinerary, George dutifully began his role as tour guide.  We began in Chinatown with a tour of a Buddhist temple, followed by an excellent vegetarian lunch at
Eight Treasures.  We next toured a mosque with an excellent guide, then peeked in at a Hindu temple. We learned something of the history of the early Chinese immigrants to Singapore--Wei's ancestors' own story--at the Chinese Heritage Museum, where we marveled at the courage and fortitude of those who came to this island for a better life. 

At the Garden by the Bay, we were awestruck by the thought and careful planning that had gone into the creation of this beautiful new botanical showpiece.  Especially impressive were the 23 "super trees," man-made, solar-powered, self-irrigating towering structures that will eventually be fully covered in lush greenery that will shade and cool the gardens.

We had a delicious home-cooked vegetarian meal at Wei's parents' lovely home.  George and Kheng were gracious hosts, and we were honored to meet the rest of Wei's family as well.  But our day was not over yet!  George drove us to the Night Safari, adjacent to the Singapore Zoo, where we boarded a tram for a moonlit journey through the habitats of many wild creatures.   Highlights included lions, hyenas, tigers, giraffes, zebras and wolves, howling as if on cue at the full moon, sending shivers down our spines despite the balmy tropical weather. 

After spending the night at Wei's sister's home, we went to a hawker's market to enjoy a typical Singaporean breakfast of carrot cake (which was neither carrot nor cake!), coconut and peanut-filled pancakes, salty pickled radish on chewy rice cakes, and a variety of sweet and savory fried pastries. 

We spent the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon exploring Singapore by commuter train and on foot.  This country at the tip of the Malaysian peninsula blends the traditional and the modern and is a model of careful suburban planning with an emphasis on beauty and function.  After spending three weeks in still-developing Asian countries, it was hopeful and heartening to see the results of man's hard work and perseverance.  Some of our favorite sights included the Merlion fountain, the symbol of Singapore, the "Lion City", the tri-towered Marina Bay Sands Hotel, whose upper deck resembles a vast ship, and the beautiful bay and skyline, with the islands of Malaysia and Indonesia visible in the distance.  Fun trivia:  Indonesia, with its 1300 islands, is the third most populated country in the world!

After a quick trip back to Wei's family  home to shower and regroup, Kheng, Wei and Michael drove us to the airport. (George had left earlier in the day for a four-day "eating trip" in Saigon with friends!)  We had dinner together at Pizza Hut in the airport, and shared a sad but sweet goodbye in front of the beautiful animated teardrop sculpture.  Hearts and heads full to bursting with so many wonderful shared memories, Linny and Kathy boarded the plane to begin the 36-hour journey back...

Phnom Penh!

Arriving in the evening in Phnom Penh, we rode our first tuk tuk (an open-sided cart pulled by a motorcycle) to Michael and Wei's apartment.  We joined Wei for a late dinner that night at Jars of Clay Restaurant, one of Michael and Wei's favorites. 

The next morning, Linny and Kathy went to tour the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, which is housed at the largest prison used during Khmer Rouge.  We looked at as much as we could of the artifacts and displays depicting the torture and killing of up to 20,000 Cambodians at this prison alone--and felt sad and horrified at man's atrocities to his fellow man...

We met Michael and Wei at one of their favorite coffee shops, then went on to tour the National Museum and the Royal Palace--our first palace, all of us agreed! Cambodia has a king in addition to a prime minister.  One may tour the palace grounds and go into several of the lavishly decorated buildings.  We requested an audience with the king, but apparently he had no desire to see us...

We dined that evening at Romdeng, a training restaurant for former Cambodian street children.  These are children, usually not orphans, who previously helped their families survive by begging or selling things on the street.  A nonprofit organization developed this program in order to keep children in school and off the streets, where they are easy marks for pedophiles and pimps.  They are trained in food service in order to give them a trade that will earn them a living wage.  While at the restaurant, instead of eating tarantulas (yes, these are on the menu) Kathy, a vegetarian, opted to let them crawl on her (see picture below)!

As ice cream is an important part of this family's summer entertainment, we then visited Blue Pumpkin restaurant, where we enjoyed yummy ice cream treats while lounging about on a cushy white couch (see picture). 

The next day, Sunday, began for Michael, Linda and Kathy with a 3-hour Cambodian cooking class at Linna's Culinary School.  Classes for learning how to cook local dishes are quite popular in Southeast Asia.  We met Linna, our bubbly, enthusiastic instructor, as she welcomed us off our tuk tuk with open arms, met our fellow classmates, two young women from Australia, and embarked on a quick trip to a local outdoor market.  Linna had us sample various local fruits, quizzed Michael on his Khmer (pronounced "Kamai") language skills, and gave us individual tutorials on various foods and ingredients.  Although she knew we were vegetarians, and had planned our recipes to accommodate this, Linna seemed to delight in pointing out to Kathy every gross meat, still wiggling fish, and organ she encountered!  We did a lot of diverting our eyes...Had we not already been vegetarians, we probably would have converted after this trip!  Back at the school, we donned aprons and made spring rolls for our appetizer.  We then convened to the kitchen, where we took our places behind counters which were laid out with every ingredient we needed to prepare a fine  curried pineapple soup, served in a pineapple boat, and a spicy green mango salad.  Linna really made us work hard identifying unfamiliar ingredients and doing all of the prep work ourselves.  We loved it!  She wouldn't, however, allow us to help with the cleanup!  We now have pictorial evidence that Michael does indeed know how to cook, so there won't be any excuse for not cooking for Wei...

After slaving over a hot stove all morning, it was determined that we should join up with Wei for a relaxing afternoon at the spa.  Spa fans, you would love Southeast Asia, as spa services are so inexpensive compared to what we are used to paying in the States.  Our experience began with a nice cup of tea, after which we were escorted to lovely, relaxing rooms for 3 hours of pampering.  Michael and Wei were together in one room, Kathy and Linda in another.  Our treatment began with a full body scrub with unidentified, but lovely smelling organic materials.  (It was during this portion that we experienced our, "Well, alrighty then!" moment which we will not describe here, but ladies, be sure to ask us about it when next we meet!)  This was followed by a lovely deep-tissue full body massage, and then an Egyptian scalp massage, after which we rejoined Michael and Wei for more tea and rambutan, a yummy fruit that rather resembles an eyeball!

We left feeling pampered indeed, and made our way through streets teeming with political parades, rallies and entertainment, focusing on next week's national election, to Shabu Shabu.  This Japanese-inspired restaurant features huge pots of steaming broth in the center, into which one adds ingredients which come by on conveyor belts between the rows of booths.  It reminded us of a combination of the Automat, the Melting Pot, and Lucy and Ethel's job at the candy factory!  Ingredients we added included tofu, pumpkin, taro, carrots, noodles of all sorts, mushrooms and various greens.  One is given 90 minutes to cook and eat as much as one likes (and there IS ice cream for dessert!).

Monday, poor Wei went off to work, and the three of us took off for the outdoor Russian Market to purchase souvenirs and ingredients for dinner.  While there, we spotted and reported to the authorities an older man in the company of a possibly underaged Asian girl, following and keeping an eye on them until the authorities arrived.  (Leo, don't freak out; we were perfectly safe.  Michael wouldn't let me attack the man myself, as much as I would have liked to.)  When the officers arrived, they identified the girl as a prostitute of legal age, but thanked us for our concern in keeping children safe.  Due to Wei's work, we were aware that sex trafficking of children is common in this part of the world.  When we later told Wei what we had done, she said she was very proud of us.

After this excitement, we returned home, ordered Malaysian food to be delivered for lunch, and all three worked on making a delicious, veggie-filled spaghetti sauce for dinner. (Cooking school Part II for Michael.)  We then took a tuk tuk to Michael's new school, the Canadian International School of Phnom Penh, where we were very impressed with (and a little envious of) the newness, space, playground and pool!  He has a lovely large classroom for his first grade class of 7 students!  Kathy especially liked the air conditioning!  (Pete S.:  hint, hint)

We returned, via tuk tuk, through the rain to Michael and Wei's apartment, where we finished making dinner.  After eating dinner, Kathy and Michael rode on his moto through more  rain back to the Russian Market for ice cream.  Among us, we enjoyed chocolate, jack fruit, coconut and passion fruit flavors.

It was early to bed, early to rise, for our plane to ...

Through Saigon to Siem Reap!

Bidding adieu to our beautiful resort at Mui Ne, we boarded a bus to Saigon where we were to catch a flight to Siem Reap, Cambodia.  Saigon was a whirlwind of sights, sounds and color. (First photo below.)  We had a good lunch at Allez Boo and stopped for bakery treats; then, still lugging all our bags (no, contrary to what they told us at our resort, you CANNOT store your luggage at the bus company's office) we did a quick geocache in a Saigon park!  Linny, the least experienced geocacher among us, found the microcache quickly and easily. 

Arriving in Siem Reap, a town several hours north of Phnom Penh, we took a cab to the Golden Dynasty Hotel.  In the morning, after a good breakfast at the Two Dragons Restaurant across the street from our hotel, we met up with An, the cab driver we had negotiated with to drive us to and around Angkor Wat that day.  (See photo of Michael and Linda with An.)

Angkor Wat amazed and awed us.  This huge area of temples was originally built to be a Hindu place of worship around 1100 A.D., but eventually expanded to become a place for Buddhists to worship as well.  Ankgor Wat, the largest religious monument in the world, was never "lost", therefore never "discovered".  It was known and used for worship continuously through the ages.  It came to the attention of Westerners when a Portuguese monk visited in the 16th century.  In more recent times, various countries, including the U.S., recognizing the value of preserving this treasure, have contributed financially to its reconstruction and upkeep.  Michael had us begin our tour at the Phnom Bakheng temple, to be found by following the "dangerous elephant path"!  From the top of this temple, we were able to see a beautiful panoramic view of many other temples.  Each temple we visited was more amazing than the last.  The hugeness of the buildings and intricate relief stonework boggled the mind when one thought about how long ago this was built, and without benefit of modern tools or transportation.  One of the photos below is an attempt to share the weird, almost unworldly look of a temple overtaken by nature.  Trees wrapped their roots around the ancient stone formations, almost as if they were attempting to eradicate man's work.  This photo was taken in the area in which the Angelina Jolie movie, "Lara Croft, Tomb Raider" was filmed.

Performing local music for visitors on their walk to the temples was a band made up of surviving landmine victims.  These brave men, who lost legs when they stepped on still-active landmines, were a stark reminder in this ancient place of the grave problems with which Cambodia continues to struggle.  They were a wonderful example to us of the amazing resiliency of the human spirit.

After a long, hot day of climbing and walking around Ankgor Wat, our driver, An, took us back to town where we enjoyed, of all things, an excellent Mexican dinner followed by Swensen's ice cream for dessert!  Then, it was time to retire in preparation for our next day's journey to ...

Mui Ne!

We hired a car to take us to the night train to Mui Ne, an oceanside town in Southern Viet Nam.  We had plenty of time to spare, so, after a madcap scavenger hunt through Hoi An for some items we needed for the trip, we directed our driver to take us to Marble Mountain.  This beautiful tourist destination, nine miles south of Da Nang, features five craggy, marble hills, each with natural grottos and caves into which have been carved statues and images of Hindu and Buddhist deities.  Kathy and Michael braved the 106-step and rock pile climb to reach the highest point of Marble Mountain, while Linda chose to be "Left to Die" (see picture).  Both parties found themselves to be the source of much interest and amusement for the largely Southeast Asian crowd. Kathy and Linda were both asked to have their photos taken!

Once again, we boarded a night train, this one for a town near our next destination of Mui Ne.  This 14-hour trip began at 11:00 p.m. in a 4-berth cabin already inhabited by a sleeping Vietnamese woman.  After tracking down a worker to clean up the rice porridge a previous passenger had spilled on the floor and his sheets, we made up our beds and settled in for the night.  Our cabin mate awoke before dawn, and spent several hours opening and closing the door, climbing up to and down from her bunk, visiting with her male friend from another cabin, talking on her phone, and sitting for extended periods of time on the bunks of Kathy and Linda, who, oddly enough at this hour, were attempting to sleep!

We arrived at our destination, the Pandanus Beach Resort, around 2 p.m.  This beautiful seaside resort, run by an ex-pat named Steve from San Francisco, rivaled the nicest beach resorts we have seen.  It had a lovely open-air lobby, where we were greeted with cool towels and fruit juice, a large pool area, a nice stretch of beach with loungers and shade palapas, and an open-air restaurant, where we were treated to a sumptuous breakfast buffet each morning.  The first evening, we rode bicycles to a small local restaurant for dinner.  The next morning, we took advantage of the resort's complimentary shuttle to ride into town to go to the market.  As were all the markets we had experienced in Southeast Asia, this one was bustling with sights, sounds and smells.  We knew we were becoming accustomed to this experience when we were no longer surprised by anything we saw!  We spent the rest of that day enjoying the pool and beach, which, due to its being off-season, were uncrowded.  Linda was surprised that the energetic Michael and Kathy proved to be very able beach bums!  Dinner that night was at an Indian restaurant in town that Michael found through his perusal of TripAdvisor.  We had delicious curries and wonderful garlic nan while people-watching those who passed on the streets of Mui Ne.

In the morning we caught the shuttle again, this time headed to the Fairy Stream.  The shuttle driver directed us to walk down a rather scary-looking alley, and once we arrived at a muddy stream, indicated that we should take off our shoes and walk through the water!  All-righty, then!  After all, when in Viet Nam...
After a short walk down the stream, which was, after all, reddish-brown from the sandy bottom, not mud, we began to see the beautiful sandy cliffs that rose up from the bed of the stream.  The red and white cliffs formed a canyon reminding us of Bryce Canyon in Utah.  The colors of the canyon against the bright blue sky were breathtaking.  All three of us were inspired to climb as high as our abilities allowed!  This was harder than we thought it would be, as the fine sand crumbled under each step we took (see photos).  We took a hilarious video of Michael getting sucked  into a quicksand-like portion of the cliff!

Returning to the resort, we spent another lazy afternoon at the beach and pool.  Just before sunset, we ventured out on foot to the nearby sand dunes, where we rented two "sleds" made of cheap vinyl shower-wall stuff.  We spent a wonderful hour climbing up and sledding down the beautiful dunes.  The view from the top was panoramic, enabling us to see other dunes, mountains, fishing boats in the ocean, and the town of Mui Ne.  The beautiful sunset was a fitting goodbye to the amazing country of Viet Nam, a country we now realized we had previously known very little about.  As Americans old enough to remember the Viet Nam War, we had certain preconceived ideas about this far-off land.  Many of these ideas changed as we traveled throughout the country and experienced the warmth, humor and kindness of its people.  We realized, after all, that we have more in common with them than we may have previously thought:  we are all just trying to work to earn a living, and provide for and enjoy our families.  So, goodbye, Viet Nam, we're on our way...