we live

sabaidee! we're not dead! no computer access for the last few days because of several reasons: the internet we used in pai closes for drinking on mondays, we took a horridly long bus ride from 11 pm to 7am from thailand to the laos border, then got on a boat for a day (can barely be called a boat: two rows of wooden benches that were constructed bolt upright or slightly FORWARD with a bench wide enough to fit three inches of buttocks), spent the night in a shady sleazy scuzzy town where the electricity for the whole town turns off at 10 pm, another day on the boat and now we are here! the boat-ride was eye-popping beautiful with crazy-jungle-covered-mountains that were so beautiful the clouds were attracted too and hovered around them. we went through picturesqe mist, light rain, heavy rain, horizontal rain and it was all so beautiful. i woke up from a nap to an immense vista of clouds and mountains and jungle. my first thought was (british accent) "shitting hell! i'm on the mekong river!" not one time for two days did i lift my head and look at the landscape and believe my eyes. so powerful.

we met a german, a south african and a canadian who are cool and have joined our party. between them and the beerlao (local drink of choice) the first day on the boat was quite pleasant despite getting off a bus after 8 hours. second day we were all grumpy as hell but are having fun now.

tomorrow we are hoping to go up to veng vieng to go tubing down the river. you just lay and float down river and rafts in the middle of the river throw you a rope and pull you over to give you beer. it comes highly recommended...don't worry moms - we'll stick together and wear life-vests.

gotta run since our group now consists of 5 people waiting for me instead of 2...
much love,
s

ho-lao!

Ok sorry for the blog neglect... much has occured these last few days. We just arrived in Luang Prabang in Laos a few hours ago... this was after taking an 8 hour bus ride from Pai to the Thai border, taking a fishing boat across a river, then taking another bus to the pier, taking a 2 Day(!!!!) boat ride down the mekong river...

ok being a little dramatic. We had a lot of fun on the way, but I am done sitting on little wooden benches with more than verticle backs and seats so little even my ass didnt fit on it... The boat ride was beautiful though. The river is a lot like iced coffee, but the landscape is incredible. It felt like we were going through jurassic park. Lush greenery, and sheer cliff face.. so cool. Woke up today with a killer case of cunjunctivitis which is a gnarly version of pink eye (think no itching, much burning, and three times the red veins on your eye ball... not so pretty) and had to sit on the boat for 8 hours with tears running down my face from my plague eyeball... not so fun.

The rest of Pai was great. We made a welsh friend, Ian, who hung out with us the whole time. Rode our motorbikes to the hot springs outside the town and had a nice dip in the mountains. One of the pools was over 200 degrees farhenheit and you could buy eggs to boil in it. Crazy! We also attempted to ride our motorbikes to the waterfalls but after driving through the razorblade grass and losing much skin and blood, almost falling in drainage ditches, sliding down a dirt trail backwards while screaming "foot brake!!!", losing my shoe in a river, and talking to a villager who said we had a 3k trek through the jungle with no trail, we eventually aborted the mission. It was fun to watch the other farang (thai for foreigner) attempt to see the waterfall though. We talked a few of them out of it after they saw how bloody and muddy we were, but we waited till they went through a few mud lagoons first.

Cant believe we are in country number 4!! I am completely accustomed to the constant moving and its gonna be so weird to be sedentary when I get back. Cant wait to eat some cheese though!


Love
J

Ps. played an open mic in Pai on our last night! It was so fun and I felt cool singing in thailand.

pps. i got another tattoo!!! Sorry mom and dad.. Its a stylized phoenix on my shoulderblade. discreet and cool... couldnt resist.

elefants!!

Yo

so guess what we did today? yup you guessed it. We rode elephants through the thai jungle!! It was so crazy! Such a good experience minus the mad ass pains i have from sitting on the elephant back for 3 hours and my swollen thumb that got bitten by a giant green caterpillar with a pink bum that got stuck to me after we got driven through a tree...

Beyond that though, great times... except when the elephant stopped to eat her second breakfast and left us 2 feet away from this giant crab sized spider with a web that was three feet in diameter and looked very hungry... she was poised to strike i could tell.

It was killer though! Amazing landscape. Both jungle and mountain, all from 10 feet off the ground. We all rode with our guide Noi on this 37 year old elephant named Mai (which is funny coz that is mollys nickname) and took turns sitting on her head. At first I was in the front and Mai's right ear had this wierd curl that enveloped my leg... Freaky in the beginning and then ended up being great bug and spiky plant armor once we were in the bush.


The best part was when we went down this steep hill and molly was in front and was seriously sliding down Mai's face. She was on her eyes and grabbing desperately for Noi while gasping in panic every step Mai took. All four of us laughed hysterically until we reached level ground. I keep laughing everytime I think about it. We also got to take Mai in the river which was basically a quickly moving mass of thick brown mud. It looked like ca phe sua da from Vietnam. The guide, Noi, told us that elephant sit down and I was not ready for what happened next. I got launched off the ten foot tall elephant as she began to roll and was dragged damn far down river while struggling to get back on her massive back. Slightly panicked but it was so fun!!

Anyway, Pai is great. very small.. but wonderfully chill with great food. Staying in a small bungalow which is fun and will be a great MTV cribs video. Wait till you see the toilet!!

gotta go. there is food to be eaten and beers to be imbibed.

love
J

mountain biking

So today the three of us took our bikes to the top of the mountain to see the wat near chiang mai. We were informed that there was only one road to the wat and therefore we would not get lost, but we did. Not only did we take the wrong road to the mountain, we all three had runins with a ditch and then proceeded to get lost in this random zoo that was on the mountain although none of us could remember the point when we crossed into zoo territory... we were just driving up a mountain and next thing we know there are rhinos. They tried to make us pay for a ticket when we finally found the exit, but we just kept saying no. We eventually did find the right road and it was the craziest winding mountain road ever! Dont worry dad we wore our helmets today. We felt pretty badass driving up a mountain on motorbikes though. The view was absolutely spectacular and we had the best pad thai ever at the top. The wat was cool minus the 268 stairs (my knees are killing me) it was still functioning and had many worshipers as well as this giant gold temple in the middle. It was the most ostentatious thing I have ever seen, but very beautiful. We leave chiang mai tomorrow for Pai which should be great and will definately involve elephant riding.

ps. We ate maggots again last night when we were drunk at this reggae bar. And they were still good!!

J

and a few more

ok so heres the dilly yo. Thailand is great! We have eaten the best food today. We had this amazing thai salad for lunch that involved an old lady with a giant bowl and huge stick that mashed chillies, crabs, and various vegetables together for our eating enjoyment. It was mad spicy, but delicious. Later we went to a big booth and ate a snakehead fish on a stick, which sarah has explained in her post. gloriously good. We rented motorbikes today and raced around the city. It was so hot out, but the breeze on the bikes was great. Much safer in Thailand. They actualy have street lights, lanes, and stop signs. They do drive on the left side of the road which took some getting used to but no big deal. Happy to be back riding the red wave!

peace to y'all


Jim Chambeaux

more pics

todays installment of photos courtesy of jim chambeaux. This is a great shot of all of us with the kids we taught english to in cambodia.

Also, our wharf rat hostel had the coolest lights at night so we had to take rock star photos.

then we have a splendid pic of sarah in a tuk tuk on way to killing fields.


also a pic of us goofing around at the 3 kings monument in chiang mai. You gotta make your own fun... and we do.
J

yay!

yay!!! tummy is feelin good for the first time in 17 days! thailand is fabulous and motorbikes are like flying and life is so good i'm high! the food market we went to tonight was incredible - can you imagine how healthy america would be if food courts were indiviual food stands selling incredibly fresh food that wasn't deep fried in poly-mono-saturated-unsaturated-sinthetic goo? we ate a snakehead fish on a stick - fish popsicle! it was awesome. everything is awesome in thailand. it feels a bit like hanoi which is so comforting because everyone there was so friendly. walking around the food stalls tonight brought many smiles in addition to the crazy-good food. maybe it's just cuz i feel like a person again...
i love this!
s

yay!

yay!!! tummy is feelin good for the first time in 17 days! thailand is fabulous and motorbikes are like flying and life is so good i'm high! the food market we went to tonight was incredible - can you imagine how healthy america would be if food courts were indiviual food stands selling incredibly fresh food that wasn't deep fried in poly-mono-saturated-unsaturated-sinthetic goo? we ate a snakehead fish on a stick - fish popsicle! it was awesome. everything is awesome in thailand. it feels a bit like hanoi which is so comforting because everyone there was so friendly. walking around the food stalls tonight brought many smiles in addition to the crazy-good food. maybe it's just cuz i feel like a person again...
i love this!
s

more

ok this is it I promise!

A pic of molly eating dragon fruit on the boat in haylong bay. They cut it and it kinda looks like teeth.. hence the picture

A pic of the three of us at a pagoda outside of hanoi


A pic of the motorbike chaos of Saigon. It wasnt even rush hour! needless to say we traveled by foot in that city.

A pic of sarah and our british friend atin who chilled with us in Saigon and took us to the places with the cheapest food and the nastiest "muk" or cuttlefish

A pic of me smoking this traditional vietnamese bong on the boat in Haylong Bay. The boat staff really wanted us to try. It was harsh!! Dont worry it was only tobacco

J

more random photos

ok here are some more


A pic of sarah and our vietnamese host and motorbike master phuong riding the "red wave"

A pic of me reflected in the motorbike mirror while buying fruit from a lady so old she looked like gollum and had black teeth

A pic of us and our hanoi friends drinking bia hanoi and eating gross but good food

A pic of the three of us in Haylong Bay. How sweaty are we? it looks like we jumped in the water

and a pic of me, sarah and phuong in action on the bikes in hanoi

why can't i eat that heart?

all kids are cute - but these kids are reeeeeeal cute aren't they! kindof glad to be out of cambodia tho... don't tell sister louise. there are especially good vibes flying around here in thai! the city is cool and looks like we won't have death by motorbike. i can't wait to get back on a bike. i just wanna ride around, get a little lost and check out changmai. the banana guest house can arrange all of our trekking, elephink rides, visit to village-of-very-long-necks and even our transport to luang prabang so it looks like we might have moved in for a bit - which is kindof a nice feeling.

i'm still sick by the way. feeling very... fragile. if i get jostled or don't focus on swallowing carefully i feel like i'll lose my lunch - or whichever of the 8 meals a day that we eat. j and m are annoyed that i'm still sick. me too. probably you too.

i just want to get well enough to start eating some really weird/gross things without suppressing the gag reflex. last night we went to a lau place - a pot of fire on your table with a can of propane and you add your own ingredients to a pot of broth and in this case a duck. i love duck. i can eat a whole duck (which i may never do again after seeing hungry kids in cambodia). when my family has duck they get one and i get one. hoewever, this duck was all the things that we don't eat... i don't think there was more than one bite of meat for each of us, if that. it was all the business from the insides. normally i would be very into trying all of the unidentified organs - really my biggest motivation for coming to SE asia was food - but i tried to do a chunk of what i think was heart and couldn't finish. soooo disappointed in myself. i ate part of the liver and that was good: smooth and buttery. didn't make me wretch only because it was familiar. the "heart" or whatever it was, was dense, and the texture of many squid in a stack - it sort of had levels of chewiness but somehow tasted very CLEAN. like squeaky clean. but meatier than squid. normally this would turn me on: a totally new thing in a place where they serve it all day long, packed with locals and recommended by a true cambodian. damn.

hope everyone is doing well!
i love yous!
s

new pics

ok here are the pics of the kids i promised. They were like little climbing monkeys! I had so many on me I fell and ripped a huge hole in my pants. I had to walk around the village with my bum out all morning.... embarrassing.

J

News from Thailand

So we are officially in country number 3: Thailand. I was sad to leave phnom penh, our wharf rat guesthouse really grew on me, and we did not have time to see much of the city. However, I am happy to leave khmer food behind, which was kind of a combination of everything asian with nasty ingredients like snakehead fish and chicken feet mixed in. The thai landscape was breathtaking on our flight in. The countryside was scattered with mountains with stainglass-like rice fields carving up the lowlands that reflected the sunlight up to the sky in vibrant olives and browns... it was cool to say the least. We are staying at another guesthouse called the Banana Guest house. The walls are covered with the graffiti of all the other backpackers who have stayed there before, which is really funny. Cant wait to leave our mark. We will be doing some kind of trekking, and definately riding elephants on a safari while we are here. Cant wait! Tomorrow we will rent cheap motorbikes and explore Chiang Mai, which is much smaller and chiller than the cities we have visited so far. Still having a blast in Asia. At this present moment i am in an internet cafe where geckos are running around the desk and it is slightly comforting and normal. Its strange how accustomed you get to things.

Miss you all and will have exciting posts coming in the next few days.


J

killing fields

we went to the killing fields of pol pot's genocidal regime. can't really describe it well yet. it is hard to be concise about something so unfathomable. how does one articulate feelings and images of complete horror. the unimaginable became very very real and that seems impossible to describe. we saw pictures of the faces of almost 10,000 prisoners who were executed under pol pot. each face makes a statement. their eyes have so many messages. the common factor: recognition that this is their last photo.

i'll post more after i look at my notes again but not ready for that yet.
hope all is well at home.
love,
s

I have many informations for you!

Yo yo peeps.


Not feelng so hot today. Must have eaten something strange last night. I woke up at 4 am with wild butt and have continued to have terrible indigestion all day. Slept the entire 6 hour bus ride from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh and then took a 3 hour nap at our wharf rat of a guesthouse on a dock in the lake. The place is crazy. pretty much no walls to speak of with crazy view of lake. THe room is wretched with metal walls and flourescent lights, but will do just fine. The door to our room would not close fully when we arrived, so some dude had to get a hatchet and a cleaver and shave down the door frame... classy.

Anyway, yesterday we went to Angkor Wat, USESCO World Heritage site #2 of the trip. It was absolutely spectacular! Where the colloseum, notre dame, and sagrada familia are all impressive and breathtaking, Angkor Wat blows them out of the water in terms of sheer scale and attention to detail. Made up of around 20 large temple complexes, it rises out of the jungle and reaches for the sky. The first temple we went to, Bayon, is famous for its colossal heads and faces carved into the temple walls and towers. They all smile with sacred knowledge, giving the place a peaceful and celebratory vibe. One thing they dont tell you is how rough the terrain is. We are talking leaping from platform to platform, scaling stairs as steep as a wall (you wouldnt know they were stairs until someone starts climbing), and mazelike tunnels. I got lost from Sarah ad Molly and climbed up a small side temple and watched the crowd negotiate the labyrith. An elderly woman, who was all smiles as if she had waited her whole life to see Angkor, took a major spill, falling six feet onto the stones beneath her. Her friend ran over to help and she was spilling blood from a massive gash to the back of her head, blood soaking through her head wrap, dripping down her glasses as she was carried out of the temple. Terrible scene. Needless to say, I was more cautious after that. Saw the temple where they filmed Tomb Raider with Angelina Jolie, where nature is reclaiming the site and giant root buttresses cleave through the ancient walls. very mysterious and gorgeous. Angkor Wat itself, the largest temple, was amazing. Surrounded by moats, the three central towers accessible only by the steepest of stairs, are reflected in the green ponds. It was incredible. We climbed up to the top with only a few panic attacks and found a spot outside to watch the sunset. I have pretty much run out of words to describe it now, but it was damn cool.

I will have pics soon I swear. I keep forgetting to bring the pic cd with me to the internet cafes.

send my stomach some good vibes.. i still have the rumbles

Love
J

days events -

we woke at 6:00 this morning to take a 6 hour, 4 dollar, bumpy-as-all-get-out bus from siem reap to phnom penh. we took the dancing road the whole way, stopping at an out-of-the-way farm every so often to let someone off. our gigantic, filthy tour bus was full of natives and foreigners and made horrible cranking sounds like we had just scraped off the metal wall of a building. this is not unsafe but it is a powerful examply of the "Everyman" here. everyone (passengers and bus-driver included) was very relaxed and we got here in one piece except for me and j who have had terrible stomach aches - not sure if they are related tho... sr. louise took us to a kroma textile workshop. it was begun by two japanese brothers who wanted to preserve the tradition of silk weavings that is centuries old. the craft is passed down from teacher to apprentice and so many lives were lost during the wars that the art was being forgotten. they searched through many villages and found a woman who had been taught and employed her to teach girls how to harness the materials, turn them into silk, make dyes, weave. the men build the looms. many are orphans or children of very poor families, and are allowed to keep their children at the shop with them. they are taught first to appreciate beauty: a value that had also seemed to have been lost after almost 3 decades of war. all students begin by replicating flowers out of art books so that they understand the importance and appreciation of beauty. the whole operation, from start to finish, was motivated by such good principles. they also took the opportunity to raise awareness about effects on the environment and use only natural fibers and dyes. when they began there were 7 employees. now they employ 500 and have a waiting list of 1000! it is a major opportunity and chance at a future. when the children are there they also learn all of the workings of the place so that they are already learning a way of making a living and of being self-sufficient. supporting "self-sufficient women" is part of the goal. feelings of admiration for the women; guilt; naivete; a need to do something. the fact that still, people are happy.


we are staying at "lakeside hostel" which is literally a dock with rooms on either side. there are hammmocks and chairs literally on the water with a diamond lake-like view - totally calming! when we got to the hostel and tried to lock our room for the first time we couldn't close the door. in the minutes since it was unlocked, we walked in, said yes, and put our bags down, the door ceased to fit into its frame... immediately a young dock-resident was employed to chisel away the frame of the door (the hostel seems to be run by an entire family, all of whom are involved). he returned with an ax. he began to chip away and we sat down to watch. some more family members walked by and contributed their two cents. this continued until one guy a bit older came with a machete and began to hammer shavings of the door frame off with the machete using the blunt side of the ax. let me tell you: he made the door fit.

we are planning on celebrating molly's birthday tonight. her birthday (july 29) actually didn't exist in my and j's world. we started flying on july 28 for 22 hours. but it was miraculously july 30 when we landed. m spent the b-day in japan closing up her life and being generally rushed and sad. so now... we slooow dooown, and celebrate the fact that she is. we are glad she is and we give thanks. tomorrow we visit the famous khmer rouge killing fields and s-21: a famous jail from which only seven people survived; then off to the silver pagoda.

cambodia has been enlightening. it is a hard place to be. important, but a dead-serious reality check.

big ups to readers who also comment - thanks gules! love u.

peace.
s

I got pooped on...

Hey faithful readers.


So we are still kicking it in Siem Reap (which means Siam defeated in Khmer). Things have been going swimmingly. Yesterday we spent the morning visiting the floating village of Vietnamese refugees on Tomle Sap, the biggest lake in Asia. The vietnamese are the ancient arch-nemeses of the Cambodians and thus during the war when the vietnamese fled to cambodia for refuge, they were not able to own land. Since they are a people accustomed to living off the water, they took to the lake and live there still. The government has given them amnesty, but the only life they know is on boat, so they dont want to move. The village itself is really interesting. Minus the fact that everything is on a boat, its just like any other village. Fish are extremely bountiful in the lake, and many of the villagers have prospered. They are cultivating the tourist industry, though it takes away from the beauty of the village, it is currently bringing in much needed funds. Sister Louise took us to the floating church that she had helped build. A small family lives in an ajoining boat in the back. They were extremely happy to have us as visitors and it was really cool to see a floating cambodian catholic church.

Next we went to The Blue Pumpkin in Siem Reap. Upstairs they have an all white room lined with beds. It was so cool!! We had some great food, all in repose, and then a short nap before taking off to visit the Missionaries of Charity, Mother Theresa's nuns in Siem Reap. They run a small orphanage near our guesthouse. We kinda just showed up and told them that Sister Louise has sent us. The nuns were relieved to have a break from the children so they could prepare food and bathe the infants. The children were so excited to have visitors and were extremely interested in what we were wearing. One little girl played with my leg hair like she had never seen any before. The kids were hysterical, climbing all over me like little monkeys. We had a great time. At one point I picked up a crying baby and tried to comfort it, but could not figure out why it was so mad. Next thing I know, the nuns are yelling and grabbing the child out of my arms. I looked down and the entire right side of my body was covered in poo!!!! This was no ordinary poo either.. It was the color of radioactive mustard and was dripping everywhere!!! It was terrible. I had to wipe it off of me with a rag and just deal with smelling poopy the rest of the afternoon. It was worth it though. It felt so good to bring enjoyment to these bright, smart, and happy children.

That afternoon we wandered around looking for a hotel with a pool. We found a 4 star hotel and just walked in like we owned the place and swam for a few hours. It was so relaxing. Wierd to see that level of ostentatious wealth in Cambodia though. Two blocks away, people are struggling to survive and living in corrugated metal shacks.

We reviewed all the footage we have been taking with Sarah's video camera. Be ready for some exciting scenes. The footage of motorbike riding in Hanoi is crazy!!! We also shot an episode of MTV cribs at our guesthouse which is hysterical.

Miss you all, but am seriously addicted to life in Asia. DOnt wanna come home!!!

J

Pics of Hanoi and the road warriors

Here are a few pics. It only lets me post five at a time. so most wil have to wait till we get back.

Ok. so some captions.


Me eating my first bite on meat in 6 years. so good!! I havent stopped, sorry bean...


Me on roof of our Hanoian Hostel. Cityscape was gorgeous. We were so stoked to have a rooftop bar and finally be in vietnam

then the three of us on our "red wave" motorbike. We loved it like a child.... It has left a major scar on my leg though.

Then a pic of the cows that wander the city and the suirrounding countryside. they are like lawnmowers you eventually eat... and very little co2 emissions. good for invironment. Imagine how shocked we were to see our first city cows though.. Really makes you feel like you are in another country.


J

ban landmines now!

global outlaw of landmines now! i am now one of those people you get bothered by on the street asking you to sign a petition to outlaw landmine production, placement and stockpiling. i'll stop the cheezy ploy but suffice it to say that the landmine museum and the war museum were successful in convincing me of the tragedy caused all over this country (and the world) by landmines. the war is over but the landmines are still claiming lives and limbs today. this world is full of stupid stupid people and the human race as a whole should be ashamed of itself. i knew a bit about the situation before (and had the same sentiments in the states) but being in cambodia has exponentially increased this feeling.

don't worry i'm not going to slit my wrists over it - that wouldn't help anything. plus, the people here don't look sad like the people in the commercials, but missing limbs really are everywhere you look. we are in a major city and most accidents happen in the countryside, so you get an idea how pervasive this problem is.

enough preaching. i don't miss home at all but i would like to give a few virtual hugs to my mom and bro; the shanahans; cuzin bertha mae; char n becs; lainers; dan my man. there's tons more but jeff is the fastest blogger ever so i gotta go.
being here highlights how very very lucky we all are and how much i love the people in my life.
peace to you,
s

I heart Cambodia

Hey everyone.


Time for another installment from Jim Chambeaux. My new nicname since my name is unprouncable to most of the asians we have met. Apparently, Jim Chambeaux is way easier. Anyway, things are going quite well in Siem Reap. We are staying at a clean and cheap guesthouse right down the street from the Catholic Church that we are volunteering at. Yesterday, as sarah told you, we helped bathe and feed the small children of Phnom Krom, a small village outside of Siem Reap city. It was absolute chaos and the children were so cute they even won me over. It was so fun and rewarding to do something so simple yet so important for the children living in such poverty. Cambodia is strange because 40% of the population is under the age of 18. That means a shit load of babies. They are everywhere, and Cambodian kids are somehow superhumanly cuter than any baby I have seen before. I understand why Angelina took one home. Today, we woke early again and went to another village to conduct an english lesson. i may be a damn good tutor, but put me in front of a bunch of kids who dont speak english and I have no iidea what to do. Luckily, both molly and sarah are experienced teachers of children so things went quite well. We sang old macdonald for about 31 centuries, then sarah started in on the ballet. It was so fun and the children loved it. it was interesting too because there were kids from the ages of 8 to 12 and they were not selfconcious or trying to act cool like American kids. it made the experience a lot more fun, spotaneous, and easy. Sarah taught them all how to bow and courtsey which they loved. Then it was my turn with art. We told the kids to draw a picture of something they loved and then tell us 3 or 4 sentences about it. I drew a picture of some palm trees, a guitar, a tiger, and a ca phe sua da (the iced coffee i love from vietnam). THe kids were actually great little artists and we had a lot of fun drawing and talking to them about their pictures.

Then the real fun started. A massive game of Duck, duck, goose, which we all, including Sister Louise, joined in on. It was hilarious and action packed. Lots of near misses, deaf defying elusive maneuvers, and victorious taggings, and that was only sister louise!! Seriously the woman is so limber and energetic! Hopefully I am as cool as she is when I am in my 60's. SHe has been extremely inspiring to work with and her life is incredibly interesting. She is taking us out to dinner to night to a traditional Khmer place with Khmer dancing. SHould be spectacular. Gotta go though, we leave soon and this shitty computer is driving me crazy.

LOve and peace
J

ps. i will post pics of the kids soon gotta put em on cd first.

pps. Mom, i bnought you something really cool today. Be excited!

ppps. postcards are being mailed tomorrow sorry for delay. Asia happened.

move over angelina

so here we are in cambodia - the most socially responsible leg of our sampler platter of southeast asia. blogs most certainly don't do this place or the people and things we have experienced justice. we got a cab to sr. louise's church (fr. heri is a jesuit priest from indonesia who also runs the church). he is a wonderfully short smiley man full of good humor and jokes. sr. louise is a french canadian who has been working here in cambodia for 3 years, with 26 years of high school teaching in japan before this. she organizes funding and programs for people of cambodia from meals and learning for children to jobs for former prostitutes. today we went to phnom krom, about 12km away, to help at a japanese-nun run school. we bathed somewhere near 60 children! got their tiny dirty bodies squeaky clean and then tossed and spun and played with them. they were a riot! so cute and rambunctious that they even melted jeff's heart and had so much fun with him that they tore the butt of his pants. he had a million children climbing him like a tree - adorable!

the work that sr. louise does makes it clear how important it is that people know about the situation here and how much difference we can make with just a little attention. i have so much more respect for her faith after seeing the way she tirelessly devotes herself to making the lives of these children even a little better. in reality she does loads for them and makes their futures much much brighter. i have become jaded to christianity by seeing how most americans treat the religion. on the other hand, you can FEEL sr. louise's devotion and sincerity and i have so much respect for her mission. i'm still confident of my own beliefs but i could imagine working with people of such faith and how fulfilling it would be to be around such staunch and confident committment.

we returned to the church and sorted almost 4,000 pens, pencils and pens to distribute to the schools (not sure how many, but serving around 1,000 children). tomorrow we go to a school to help teach english and... ballet! i can't wait to do ballet! hopefully we will have great fun and the kids will be into it - boys can be difficult in such large groups and these kids are crazy! i'll have to restrain ms. hess and try and keep it sarah. most of you haven't seen me teach but molly and a few dancers say i'm pretty... what's the word... STRICT. HAHAHAH! my mom says i'm good tho - so there! i can't wait! jeff is going to do an art class section with the new markers, colored pencils and water-colors. sr. louise has been trying to get an art program going so she is very excited.

in the afternoon we are going to the war museum and the mine museum. sr. louise will take us to an apsara dance performance and a really cool restaurant. we are going to a floating vietnamese village and church on tonle sap lake, and going to mother teresa's missionary orphanage (where we are excited to squeeze some babies!). we make soup on friday for the same kids from today and then off to angkor wat on saturday to see the most incredible temples ever! sunday morning we catch a very early bus to phnom penh for a couple days. whew! ur all caught up.

we're gonna go get some dinner and hang out before our 9 am bus tomorrow.

lots of love from all of us and thanks to those of you who posted - ur cooler than those who didn't!
s (and m and j)

sr. louise has so much planned for us that i can't remember all of it and molly's got it written down so i'll let her finish it up.

one more pic

I had to post this one too. I promise the next batch will have a pic of me too.


J

naive philosophy

hum kum! let me start by saying i miss everyone! i wrote a very long e-mail to my brother last night and then shitty vietnam computer lost it - so frustrating that i couldn't post after that, my apologies for not being better.

saigon is not as wonderful as hanoi just as new york is not as friendly as chicago which is not as friendly as cassopolis, michigan. i suppose that is to be expected but was still surprised given the overwhelming warmth of vietnamese in hanoi. the last two days have been difficult war education. first the war atrocities museum yesterday and then cu chi today. our guide for cu chi fought for the south meaning he was allied with america and it was interesting to hear his account and his feelings toward the u.s. the obvious feeling as an american in vietnam is guilt but mr. hai reminded us that half of the country was working with the u.s. and fighting against the communist north. he made many jokes about how he was glad to be on the side of the south because he wouldn't want to crawl around in the tunnels of the opposition. also how he likes hamburgers and potatoes so he was glad to be with the americans. he is definately not a bitter man and made it clear that the past is in the past. after the u.s. left, the war continued until one day some viet cong told him it was over and he went home. shortly thereafter, south vietnamese officers and officials were rounded up and put in labor camps called re-education camps. sentencing was dependent on rank and level of involvement in order to keep the "dangerous capitalist ideas" contained. mr. hai was detained for 3 years for his work as a translator during the war and then denied citizenship in any cities for quite a while, part of which he spent in the countryside, very poor, and part of which he lived illegally in saigon. he was not embittered toward americans but pointed out the foolishness of our government. when asked wether he thought america should have been involved he responded with a decisive "no" and then immediately compared the american war (the vietnam war) to our current war in iraq.

being in saigon makes my feelings about war, and especially iraq, even more decisive. this is such a wonderful country with fascinating culture and charming people. but everywhere i look the phrase "third world" comes to mind. where would this country be, with so much to offer and such natural beauty in its landscape and people, if war hadn't devastated it so completly? i just passed a woman on the street coming here who has been disfigured by agent orange. she may have been affected first hand or it may have genetically altered her through her parents exposure. her legs were so badly deformed that she was dragging herself along on her hands. why didn't i learn about this more in school. isn't knowledge the way to prevent this in the future? j, m and i learned so much about the holocaust in school but there is so much that i wish i had known about vietnam. it is so upsetting that we don't know more about our own history.

as i think all of these thoughts i am also constantly reminded how cliche i must be and how many people have already thought these thoughts, so thank you for bearing with me.

much love,
s

Pics

Ok so here are some pics that our friend Magnus from Sweden took of our trip to Halong Bay. Only a few so far but more will come soon. Pat, the garbage cans in the caves are giant penguins you would have loved it!!!

We are officially in Cambodia as of now. This is definately a place that I never thought I would visit in my lifetime. Aside from the gorgeous airport (it puts america to shame, full of art, marble, and plants) the country is substancially poorer than vietnam. There are beggars all over the streets, naked children, and livestock everywhere. We are staying at a really clean guesthouse in a dorm room. We thought we were alone until we discovered a giant lizard in the bathroom. What can you do? We will be traveling to villages all week and feeding, bathing, teaching children, and then visiting angkor wat on saturday before leaving for pnomh penh on sunday. It should be a great experience and I am definately excited to help out while I am here. It will be a huge change from the debauchery of Saigon.


J

Cu Chi Land

What up? So I am back in an internet cafe to deliver another spew of info. We went to the Cu Chi tunnels today, about 60 km from Saigon. Cu Chi was a small and tranquil village area that rich Saigonese would vacation to during the summer coz it was filled with flower fields and fruit orchards. When Vietnam began struggling against France when it was a colony, the clay soil of Cu Chi was a perfect place to construct tunnels for shelter and guerilla warfare. During the "American War," the tunnels were expanded to over 150 kms!! huge! We were taken on a tour of the area and saw how the Vietcong lived during the war. They had barely any food and survived on a root vegetable comparable to a sweet potato. We tried it and it was so bland...had to be way worse than the potato famine..

We also got to crawl through some surviving tunnels which was really cool. The temperature in the tunnels is cool and nice, but they are incredibly narrow. Only one person can move at a time and at times the tunnels get so narrow you have to crawl on your stomach.. fortunately it didnt get that small in the section we were in. I freaked out a little at one point and scraped the shit out of my shoulder.. not a big fan of dark tight spaces. Overall the experience was really cool since we had a guide named Hai who fought with the Americans and South Vietnamese against the Vietcong during the war. He was full on information and had many incredible first hand accounts of the war.

Last night, Sarah, Molly, Atin (our new british friend who is in Saigon with us), and I went to a small street food place for dinner. We ate fried whole anchovies (they tasted like french fies with fins) and muc, which is a delicacy in Saigon. Muc is cuttlefish (yes like the kind you pin to the inside of bird cages for calcium) and it smells like rancid ass!!! it is so chewy that you cant bite it and have to eat it whole and viguorously chew before you puke. I ended up spitting it out and eating a small tentacle instead which was more bearable. Not as good as maggots. So far the most disgusting thing I ate was calf skin (like a boot leather). I thought it was an onion so imagine my surprise when I tried to chew and my jaws bounced off the rubbery flesh! I literally puked in my mouth and had no napkin to spit it in. I was forced to swallow the puke and spit the calf skin into my bowl.... it was rush hour in the biggest bia hoi (a large outdoor pub restaurant full of vietnamese business men) so it was quite embarrassing. stupid american!

Anyway, tonight is our last night in Vietnam so I am on the prowl for some snake.. Must eat it! Might do the cobra blood shot to if i can muster the balls. I am sad to leave "Freedom Country" as we have grown to call it. Its really a beautiful, peaceful, and exciting mix of sights and sounds. Cambodia is going to be completely different.

J

Saigon Nights

Allright.. where to begin in the filling you in on the events of the last few days. Yesterday was our last day in our home away from home, Hanoi. We were all very sad to leave our adopted city. We had a great breakfast at a small street food stand with a table and chairs a mere few inches off the ground. While browsing the buffet of foodstuffs, we noticed a bowl of small yellow oval things. Upon further inspection, said bowl was realized to be holding fried maggots. This is when it gets interesting. I dared Sarah to eat one if I did, and Molly stated forcefully that eating bugs was crossing her line of food adventurism. Next thing we know, we are sitting around in our baby furniture with three maggots clenched firmly between our chopsticks. and guess what kids.... THEY WERE GREAT!!! Seriously.. They were not bursting balls of squishy guts. They were slightly nutty perfectly grainy chewy bite-sized bugs of goodness. I really liked it!

Here is the next bit of exciting news. Phuong introduced us to his friend Tuan who is a famous fashion designer in Hanoi. Today, he met with the Vietnamese Idol (The vietnam equilavent of American Idol) to dress the contestants. Tuan is great, really good at karaoke, and asked me to model his clothes for him so he can put the puictures on his website. I had a really embarrassing photoshoot at his store in Hanoi, made bearable by the massive amount of tiger beer i drank, which ended up being a lot of fun. I felt like a mad rockstar sitting on a motorbike on the crowded streets of Hanoi in really cool clothes. I scored two really nice shirts out of the deal and sarah and molly are getting clothes delivered to the states especially made to their measurements. Who would have thought that shit would happen? Crazy!


Anyway, I am composing this scatterbrained post from an internet cafe in Saigon, surrounded by teenage Vietnamese playing online adventure games on computers from the 80's that are swarmed by tiny gnats. Saigon is substantially bigger than Hanoi, and much crazier. Very seedy....

Last night we arrived at 1 am and took a taxi to our hotel (which was so nasty I will spare you the details) and then proceeded to have a beer and a snack before bed at the bar next to the hotel. The place was crawling with prostitutes, underage and ancient alike, and old westerners were taking their favorites home for the night. We sat outside and at least twenty street vendors approached our table selling everything from dried squid to cigarettes. Saigon is in your face at all times and the dark undertones instill the place with a sense of dangerous excitement. We went to the war museum today, which was shocking and draining. The place is centered around a courtyard housing tanks and planes used by the US during the war. It seemed like a place where you negotiate the space with reverence to the dead, but many tourists (western and eastern alike) were smiling for photos everywhere. The exhibits were very well put together: paintings, journalistic photos, and general paraphenalia. The history of the war was explained through the walltexts accompanying the pictures, and was relatively unbiased on which side was to blame. It painted a picture of great tragedy for everyone involved. However, I was disgusted and deeply disturbed by the photos of the Vietnamese agent orange victims. These were/are children of the people who were victims during the war, who are suffering deformation, retardation, and other sicknesses as a result of America's use of biotoxins during the war. It was so awful to think that our society justified the extermination of these people by saying that they were less than human. During this trip, we have been treated like royalty by every Vietnamese person we have met. They are the kindest and most welcoming country I have visited, and they suffer still from America's egotism and idiocy 30 years ago...



Ok, so we will be vising Cu Chi (yes it is pronounced Cootchie, you pervs) tomorrow, which is the network of tunnels used by the vietcong during the war. It should be an amazing experience.

Though I miss Hanoi already, I am excited that we still have 4 other countries to visit in the time we are here. Stay tuned


Love
J

ps. I am on a mission to eat snake while I am here, and possibly the cobra blood shot! good thing is got 11 innoculations! I promise to post some pics soon, but we have been pretty nonstop since getting here and havent had time to upload. My carnage burn is starting to heal, but is still pretty gnarly. What can you do?

wild butt tales

so we got back from halong bay which jeff informed on pretty well so i'll fill you in on the ever titilating and suspenseful wild butt which i have been experiencing since my first day here... diarrhea on a boat. yes it sucked. our second and final day on the boat we were kicked out of rooms with several hours to go before port so that they could be cleaned for the next group of captive tourists made to stick to the stupid schedule. there was one bathroom available after that for crew and guests and there was no way i could do that to everyone. i asked our guide if i could use a room and he misunderstood the reason. result: jeff and molly explaining to the whole boat that i was going to be splattering and repainting the walls and so could not use the bathroom that everyone else needed. fun.

gotta go ride a motorbike!
s

Aquatic Tourist Prison

Hey everyone


As stated before, we have just returned from Halong Bay. Continuation of this subject will restart in a few sentences, but for now let me just say that I have sustained major trauma and carnage from the over friendliness of my right calf and the exhaust pipe of our motorbike "the red wave." Yes, its true... I managed to burn the shit out of my leg... it didnt hurt at the time, but now I have massive burns in the shape of a pig snout.. Looks like I am gonna have brand number two (or three depending on who you ask). Anyway, I am keeping it clean and should remain gangrene free. Being a road warrior has taken a toll on me. By the way, Phuong took us to the museum in Hanoi during rush hour a few days ago and i was initiated into Road Warrior status through trial by fire. We are talking skinny winding roads, huge busses, cows, carts, no traffic laws, no traffic lights, no traffic signs, no lanes, and 3000 motorbikers... plus we three idiot americans.. It was such a rush!! I am in love with the "red wave" and will be purchasing one when I get back. So much better than a car!

Ok now for the resuming of Halong Bay.

The bay is beautiful. over 1000 limestone islands rising out of green water. Unfortunately, it is so beautiful that the tourist industry has taken a major toll on the natural beauty. There are scores of "junks" which are really just highly polluting motor boats with sails that only go up when it is a major photo opportunity. The bay is quite littered and many indigenous people row small boats packed with random junk food, cigarettes, and "cold beer" (cold is not so cold in Vietnam we have learned). However, the place is still killer and is on the mend now that UNESCO has stepped in and converted much of the bay into a world heritage site. This has helped the people continue their fishing lifestyle and deterred tourism from killing the mangrove and coral forests. Halong Bay is full of "floating villages" which are literally boats with houses on them where communities of people fish and live. They are not particularly pretty, but they are incredibly interesting. We went kayaking in the bay this morning in the midst of a floating village. It was slightly awkward invading their space, as people went about their business, cleaning their houses, throwing away the trash, and the such. There we are, american tourists who payed next to nothing, and we are floating outside the backs of their houses staring...

This is the last time we do a guided tour. It was very constricting, and it seemed to demean the power and beauty of the bay. It felt like a bad day excursion from a cruise ship.. Remember "who let the dogs out" mom and dad? It was kinda like that.


So we fly to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) tomorrow night, which will be a whole new experience. Cant believe we have only been here 5 days... So much has happened. I still cant believe I am here.

Love you all and cant wait to read the comments.. Keep em coming!

J