If a tree falls.....

So I'm just going to get this pity party out of the way now....part of the challenge of my confidence building exercise 2016 here is being here and doing things on my own. I'm already getting sentimental and weird in moments where I should just be like.....ahhhh....yes indeed life is good!

Every time I see something cool, I wish I had someone there who I could share it with....and sitting here sipping cold water by the beach I realized two things..

1. I'm not a beach person, and for those of you with limited beach experience, here's the thing...to have a good beach experience, you need...
- a tiki hut/shade
- a cooler of cold things to drink
- snacks
- a good book
- the ability to chill out easily
- to have skin that's not delicious to sand flies
- not mind jelly fish

Yes indeed it's beautiful and sunny and warm, but if we could just combine that with a little cloudy cold front here and there, perfection. Of course my next town is Nha Trang followed by Mui Ne. Two beach towns. Here we go!

The second thing...
I guess this blog can be my company when I'm alone...really let's face it, if r man were here, he'd be bored as hell and wouldn't be at the beach in the first place, instead, hunting down caves or crabs or a cool sinking boat off shore.

I do need to work on first words....the cold open....the hard sell...the "hello, my name is....I'm a desperate lonely almost middle aged women on a crazy escapade...mind if I join you?  Ok....I'll work on it!  Needs some tweeking I think.

Cau Lau

There's a few delicious specialty dishes in Hoi An. Shrimp dumplings in the shape of roses. Cold noodles. Hot noodles. Pho. Rice with chicken. Banh Mi of course. All or them are particularly unique in flavor and texture. So so good! 

I think Cau Lau is my favorite because of the chunky thick noodles and the square delicious bits of crispy wonton squares on top.

Hoi An alleyways

Well, I'm back on my feet with my fever gone at last. I'll spend two more days in Hoi An though to make certain I'm fully recuperated.

Hoi An is super touristy in all the best ways, lots of clothes and shoes to buy, quiet streets to walk, old buildings and museums to look at.

So even though it's touristy, it's also charming and fits under the description of: it's touristy because there is something people want to experience and see here unlike anywhere else.

 

But I've been wondering, where do the locals live amongst the hotels and restaurants?  I found out this morning!

Alleyways!  A whole system of back alleyways just big enough to walk or bike thru which run thru the entire city. Local stores, restaurants, day cares, and just people living there lives washing dishes and sitting reading the newspaper.

Some of them are dead ends, which you don't know til you're stuck and have to turn around with surprised looks from on looking older women, but that's fun too. My plan today is to walk as many as I can and enjoy the quiet surrounded by brick walls, houses and people being people.

Speaking of local, I attached a pic of a sign up where I had breakfast.  Soccer fans are everywhere.

It's officially begun.

A mere one hour ago R man left for the airport. It is done. 

I'll be honest I couldn't keep the tears back once he was out of sight and my heart hurts being in our hotel room without him. When it comes to travel, we make a great team and the last week has been no different....I haven't had time to blog because we have been having too much fun climbing mountains, catching trains, hopping taxis, we even bummed a ride on two mopeds from some fellow travelers in the middle of nowhere. So yes, a little justified heartache seems appropriate at this moment. It was very confusing to explain to both hotels....no, no, just me staying!  Not two!  But alas, my jumpy bunny is NYC bound.

On top of this I've come down on my first day solo with a lovely tummy problem and a light fever. Luckily whining to my parents about my trouble in paradise, they reminded me of the PEPTOL BISMOL I'd packed for just this moment. I can already feel it kicking in sitting up right at last without pain. 

So where am I now?  Hoi An!

A gorgeous tourist friendly biking/pedestrian friendly small town with delicious delicious food. It's a great place to just settle and rest and be and get myself together. I literally made no plans beyond this point, so now it's up to me. 

Here's our last photo together before he left.  So....time to buck up and move on.  But first, nap!

Taking the train to De Nang!

Hue

Rodolfos in a giant coffee cup!  If you look in the background there's a group of people cuddling a giant teddy bear.

Places like this make travel awesome!

Lying with a smile....

The hoax. 

Every time any one travels, it doesn't matter who you are, there's a moment where you either get majorly ripped off (not talking cents but sometimes hundreds/thousands of dollars) or in our case today, being told one thing ...specific information that's critically time and distance sensitive that can make or break important scheduled/planned events in a vacation.

The bus company reccommended in all the guide books shows scheduling on their website for 4 different departure times every day to Kat Ba Island from Hanoi. So we spent the morning sight seeing and when we got to the bus station (far from the main part of town, as often is the case) they had a sign up right in front of us. There are only two scheduled times early in the morning and we had missed them)....but according to the bus guy, he wrote out a more expensive play by play plan of local bus/taxi/speed boat that would get us there that after noon....as long as we got to the speed boat terminal by 5pm. 

We decided to try. We are on a tight schedule with R man heading home next week and every minute counts. 

The bus that is scheduled to take 2 hours to go 60km took 3 1/2 hours due to dropping and picking up every customer at their specified intersection, getting reviewed by 4 different bosses, and apparently doubling as a fed ex truck. We got a taxi driver who played the fool and when we finally made it to the boat dock at 4:30pm, the last scheduled expensive boat had left 30 minutes prior..he had specifically instructed that the last boat leaves at 5pm, giving us hope and worry thru the entire grueling trip.....what a pain. 

All in all it was heart breaking to be left in an empty street surrounded by scam artists rubbing it in our faces that we didn't make it, a taxi driver who just shrugged and drove off and a feeling of "shit, sometimes you just can't win". Of course we never would have made the choice to travel to this place the way we did for double the price at all had we known the outcome of spending the night in Hai Phong. 

But these situations you make lemonade with right?!?  I checked us into the....well...it's crappy and expensive for Vietnam standards/compared to the heaven that was Little Hanoi Diamond in Hanoi....the motel 6 or red roof inn equivalent of Vietnam a block from the port.  Then we ate a delicious bowl of noodles (the closest we've had to pad Thai here, but with a serious awesome twist, accompanied by little bowls of wontons in chicken broth and pints of beer.  The great thing about visiting a smallerish town with no UNESCO world heritage sights? No tourists.  People smiled and said hello in the streets. We wandered thru street stalls selling wine/beer/bright red sparkly things and dried fruits all tied and wrapped together in gift baskets for Vietnamese New Year.  The bill for the delicious meal came to a whopping $3.50!  Our crap hotel?   Only $25. We ended up loving the walk thru the streets of this pier side neighborly community passing over 100 coffee shops in a 1 mile radius watching friends sit together sipping caffeine on the streets in the dark. 

Ha Noi first impressions

Water buffalo and old bicycles parked along the highway from the airport. 

Locals staring in amusement at the oddly dressed pirate pants wearing white people trying to find where to catch a bus walking up and down the same street in front of the airport repeatedly, followed by the the man who yelled in anger that if we don't accept him overcharging 150% we should go elsewhere.....yelling loudly one hour later....ok....ok....only 80% over what he should charge, and us accepting gladly. 

Loud speakers at dusk announcing something followed by music. 

Loud speakers at dawn announcing ???  followed by music....choral with instrumentation to be exact (I'm listening to it now)

So. Many. Mopeds. 

SO MANY MOPEDS!!!!!

So close to my feet. To me.....beeping, beeping, behind, in front of, parking, pulling out. Eeeeee!!!!!!

Sidewalks full of: people on mini stools sipping beverages, raw fish, snails in giant bowls, crazy green fruits that look like wiggly fingers coming out of a fist. 

Baskets of every kind of food. 

Beautiful baguettes, bags of liquids, fruits, veggies

Off to explore the citadel and HCMCs mausoleum! Then it's off to Kat Ba!

Cheers!

Seafood out of my ears

Grilled seafood platter with mussels, littler mussels, crabs, octopus

Tom Ka seafood soup with fresh Thai basil. Fresh ginger, octopus, shrimp with the heads on, fresh coconut, chiles and lemon grass

Fried rice with soft shell crap from the region 

Fried Thai Sea Bass with a spicy green mango sauce

Morning glory greens that taste fresh and a little sweet 

A sweet fish sauce with yet more green chiles. 

This picture is horrible and does not do this banquet justice 

For breakfast it was grilled chicken which had been smothered in lemongrass and ginger and slow cooked til the meat fell off the bone and then Hacked up into squares for easy grabbing with fingers accompanied by bags of sticky rice and a sweet and tangy tamarind chile sauce for dipping small balls of the rice into with your hands. 

All of this was followed by driving and strolling thru Buddhist temples and gardens in the near hillsides of Pattaya and our friends local monastery which is closed to the public. I learned a lot about monks and Buddhism today, as well as daily life of the Thai people from our friend. So much more in one day then our full month five years ago. I feel grateful for the opportunity to catch up with our old friend and favorite delicious foods we've missed while discovering a new Thai city we've never been before.  Being back in Thailand is comforting. 

It's a great start to a new adventure.  Now if only I could sleep at a normal hour (it's 1am and I'm wide awake) anticipating our next leg into the unknown. 

24 hours in the air

16 hours From New York to Tokyo. 

8 hours Tokyo to Bangkok Thailand. 

I don't know weather to be awake or asleep where and when. It's been the question on my mind for last 48 hours. 

Some of the highlights of the flight on Ana Airlines included little mini teensy bottles of soy sauce, that I could re screw the cap back on to and of course getting to eat Japanese food....like locals do. 

Salmon and rice with a smoked salmon salad on the side and steamed veggies that I didn't know the names of, but one was white with big holes in it and had the perfect almost crunchy texture. 

So now it's jet lag time!

The first flight I couldn't sleep at all. 

The second I was only awake for the last hour and passed out sitting up right the moment I sat down. 

Now it's 7am local time and I'm wide awake with a slight headache and a little confusion as to how it's even possible R man can still sleep. It's definitely going to take a couple of days to figure out when I'm supposed to be conscious.  It didn't help that our flight arrived around 2am at night.  

Today is our single day spent in Thailand in a city called Pattaya a couple hours south of Bangkok, with a close friend of ours who is a Buddhist monk here that we met 10 years ago in Madison WI.  He's arranged everything. Rented a car, picked us up from Bangkok, put us up in a friends hotel down the street and now we will spend the day seeing sights, catching up and eating delicious food. Last night when we arrived our friend took us to the secret local basement food court in the blackest farthest corner of the Bangkok airport where a bowl of delicious flat noodles, pork, and squares of fried tofu cost  50 baht. ($1.50). Today the plan is seafood by the ocean.  I can't wait!!!

Giving up control of the day to day

When I wake up in the morning, the first thing I do is make a list.  It helps me to organize my day and figure out what the heck it is I need to focus on, rather than feel overwhelmed with everything all at once and freak out.  

I keep a list notebook.  This notebook is filled with list upon list upon list with no beginning or end...no time sequence, just scribbles of words with lines thru them and sometimes big circles, lots of questions marks and COURSE!  EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!!, interspersed with recipes from the Internet, websites, phone numbers, window measurements, names of museums and lots of the same words over and over again: bank, library, laundry, clean bathroom, sweep floors, go for bike ride and exercise.  Everything but exercise usually has a line drawn thru it by noon.  

My usual list is about to become temporarily obsolete.  No more library.  No more grocery store.  No more laundromat.  LOTS of exercise!  I won't have a list because I won't be able to predetermine what/where/how my day will be like.  I'm definitely feeling a little sentimental about saying a temporary goodbye to that normalcy and control!  

The list I wrote out today is suprisingly much in the present.  Call/email/contact friends I won't see for a while.  Enjoy time alone and also savor every second with my life buddy R man and time with friends/family.   I'm not really the type of person who likes or enjoys the unexpected, surprises, random events occurring, so to sign up for a solo trip alone where every day is guaranteed a surprise...well, it's good I'll be alone for it, becuase if I get cranky, it's only going to be me suffering thru my own case of the grumps!  Maybe, just maybe, I'll discover I even enjoy spontenaety! Maybe when I get back, they'll be new words on my lists...."go for an adventure", "eat lunch somewhere new", I guarantee exercise still won't be crossed off.

Packing for S.E. Asia on an emotional level

I just finished packing for my trip...take 1!  (They'll be a take 2,3,4 and 5 later on, don't you worry!)

It's always good to do a practice run a week or two ahead of time and let it sit for a while, so that when the day comes to actually head to the airport, it's not done in a rush, I know where everything is, and I have time to ponder now on what I've put in the bag...how many of what, not enough of this, too much of that, edit, edit, edit!  But it's looking good so far!  I have everything I think I'll need fitting into a school sized back pak.  Plus, it's light..really light.  Carry on sized.  Compared to the first time we went and we barely packed to make it under the required 50 lb. max, I've come a long way.

I found myself getting very sentimental at moments wrapping up things in balls, stuffing things in bags and fitting things into little pockets...saying hello to some old friends I haven't seen since my last trip.  My set of Bamboo eating utensils (complete with chopsticks) that have been used to consume many a ripe mango, avacado, canned sardine in so many places.  I also got out the old passport fanny pak that has had so much sweaty hot quality time already next to my tummy....ah yes, nothing like the feeling of passports pressed against skin in a hot sweaty boat on a river.

This time, instead of packing photos of people, I've decided to incorporate useful objects from people that I love.  I packed my toiletries in a leather pouch I bought in Chile at a market with R man's family.  I packed all my clothes in a New York Times giveaway canvas bag to remind me of my now "hometown", I wrapped all my socks (two pairs) and bikini in a handkerchief I secretly stole from my father years ago.  It made me realize and remember how emotional and important every minute object becomes when I am far away from home.  How every time I wear the same shirt over and over again....if that shirt was given to me by someone I love, it's as if I'm surrounded, protected, connected by the love of that person while I'm wearing it.  That sometimes can mean so much more than wearing the ultra-high-tec-gortex-wind resistent-micro-down-sunproof shirt from REI...sometimes!  (I packed that one too, don't worry, but just one)

As I layered a rain coat and my one pair of shoes on top of the ziploc baggy of emergency medications and a beach sarong, I started thinking about time capsules and how they are layered with objects and things that could be normal and boring at one time in life and then some day in the future, these same objects become priceless treasures.  Tucked away in the dark for mysterious periods of time and when it's opened, the joy that they could bring just by existing...the feeling of elation they can bring...like this guy...

 

Each of these items will be opened and used some time in the coming weeks and when I find them and use them, they will make me so happy.  So now the question is, what object will I pak now that in a month could create this type of euphoria?  Also, of course, there's all the random crap I won't actually need or use but I'm packing anyways because I don't know that yet, or vice versa, the list of things I'll be dreaming about having when I'm there, but forgot to pack!  Ah yes indeed, it's a fun crap shoot.  Luckily, I already know one basic fact.  We need a lot less stuff than we think.  The other one I can't leave out....they sell t-shirts in Cambodia!  Actually...that's where my high tec-wind resistent-spf 80 REI t-shirt was made! 

Btw, if you want to hear the interview with this lovely interesting Norwegian man named Aleksander Gamme, he was the first up on this episode of Radio Lab, "Bliss":

How solo is solo travel?

People!  I am heading back onto the road!  What a great moment to look forward while also looking backwards.  These days remind me so much or our first time traveling back in 2009.  I'm getting a little antsy, nervous and excited and this time, I know what and how to pak!  LIGHT!  Planning, organizing, buying stuff, researching, freaking out a little bit, but this time I know a little better what to expect!  Also, this time, technology is actually way better than it used to be for keeping in touch and knowing where I'll be thanks to offline Google maps, T-Mobiles awesome international coverage, my iPad and free wifi all over the place.

Okavango Delta, Botswana, 2010

Cappadocia, Turkey 2012

I will be traveling to Vietnam/Cambodia/Thailand for 2 months!  That's got nothin' on our year plus previously (actually we only spent 3 months in -Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Laos and Japan, this trip will fill the South Eastern holes), but I am hoping to write while I'm there (I'm
bringing light weight excellent tech with me this time) and the big. Big. BIG! Change is that for 6 weeks I will be solo.  R man's tagging along for the first bit to have our annual 'romantic couples destination getaway'(Utah, Chile, Turkey adventures) and after that, I'll be roughing it Southeast Asia style like way back when..... 

Bali Indonesia, 2010

I'm also going to try and resist shaving my head this time around...although, it's so so satisfying to not deal with hair while traveling.

Malaysia 2010

Will I in actuality be alone?  No.  There's no need to imagine me in a jungle with an Indiana Jones
hat staring down half naked locals with spears.  The particular route I am taking is quite popular and I'll be doing it with hundreds of my closest touristy backpacker friends.  This area of S.E. Asia is a staple for many a European traveling for the first time in their young lives on 'gap year' (the year they take off between high school and college) or even people like me from all over the world taking a longer 'holiday' adventure...because they have 4-8 weeks off paid vacation a year.  What?  Me?  Jealous?  

A lot of them are also women traveling alone and often times, at hostels chatting over a beer, friendships are made and travelers unite and travel for a while together, since they're heading the same way.  I've met some of these solo ladies and traveled with them myself the last time we were there.  We've made many close and dear friends this way over the years joining forces, trading travel advice and enjoying each other's company.   Plus, travel time is different.  One day on the road traveling with a new friend is equivalent in real people time to weeks or months...time stands still with no need to end a hang out early for waking up the next day to get to work and day time is a never ending wide open weekend for adventuring!  This is a wonderful opportunity for me to meet and get to know new people from new places!  Traveling with someone else can actually get a little boring.  Traveling as S&R, oftentimes meals would be spent non-verbally staring out windows, because we literally had nothing new to say to eachother having spent every moment together, there's nothing to catch up on!  This way, there will be new stories to share with new people, and you!   Traveling solo also allows taking some time to myself whenever I want to walk, sleep, read, write, eat, drink or just be. 

I'm excited for the opportunity to make all the choices I'll get to make alone and see what those choices will be.  Am I a beach bum at heart with a good book and fruit smoothie?  Might I actually choose to go on hikes or tour packages?  Will I want to spend time in big cities?  Am I a coffee drinker when I'm alone?  Will I eat breakfast?  Snack all day long like the Asians do?  Enjoy temples or get bored?  Be fascinated by history of places or spend more time people watching?  I don't know yet! 

Borobudur, Yogyakarta Indonesia 2010

Working in the food industry, I have always found people sitting alone in restaurants to be a little depressing and have a hard time doing it.  In this sense, Asia is a perfect place to go as street food tends to be eaten alone, people watching, plus!  I can focus on the deliciousness of my food bite by bite!  What an extravagance!

Rice packet stuffed with fish and spicy coconut curry sauce on the side from street market, Terrenganu Malaysia 2010

Mini Rice flour pancakes from the night market, Krabi Thailand 2010

I dedicate this first S.E. Asia travel blog entry to my family in order to share all of the preemptive activities/purchases/preparations I am doing in order to secure my safety while alone and make you feel a little better!  ;) (grand daughter points....*CA CHING!!!!!)

*That's the sound of hundreds of coins falling into a bucket! I'm all about the extra credit.

- I have travelers insurance purchased

- I have checked in with all of my financials and have back up plans for back up plans if something gets lost or stolen

- I'm bringing a travel lock and cable to keep my stuff secure

- I have a travel book and I'm also doing a lot of prep study of the places I'm going with lists of names of good hotels/hostels/restaurants/transport/adventure guide companies reccommended in other travel blogs and books, but I'm also open to the unknown and the mystery of the moment.

- I have purchased PEPTOL BISMOL....or rather, my mom did for me, thanks mom!  Golly shuck.

- I will have high quality sun screen and bug spray AND a tooth brush cover

- Travel undies, soap and laundry line are good to go!

- I just dropped off our passports yesterday at the Vietnamese Embassy, so we will have no problems entering the country...this is the part I feel the most nervous about, luckily, we now live in a city that has an embassy for almost every country in the world..HANDY THAT!  It was more expensive than I thought it would be, $80 each, but hey...that's still less than what I paid for Argentina or Tanzania, you know, to keep it in perspective....it all goes around, plus, what I'll be spending daily for an excellent quality of life while in Vietnam...once it all averages out for the honor of visiting a new place, $80 for a visa is a bargain.

However, grandparents and parents alike, you are being warned, traveling always has its pros and cons, just like life anywhere.  One day I could be sipping smoothies on the beach and the next, I won't be able to figure out how to cross the street.  This trip I've decided to leave nothing out, the goods and the bads...so yes, you'll worry, but you're Minnesotan so you'll worry no matter what!  *Wink, wink

I'll keep you posted now on upcoming travel plans as my excitement rises.  Eeeeeeeeee!