Were home

We are back in Calgary after a long flight. The weather is good, giving us a chance to adjust. We both woke up in the middle of the night last night and felt like it should be day time but eventually managed to get back to sleep, and we feel good this morning.

Heading Home

After an enjoyable stay with the Hansen-Langes, our trip is just about finished; the only remaining task on our end is to make it to the Hong Kong airport. We have really enjoyed our trip and the chance to step back from our ordinary lives and think about what is important to us while we are not in the middle of day to day life. Even though we have enjoyed not having a strict routine, I think it will be nice to get back into the regular swing of things. However, getting to the point of having things set up again may be a challenge. I'm sure we will manage doing the reverse of all we did when we prepared to leave last year, and we will soon be settled back into life in Calgary.

Lazy in Hong Kong

We have spent the last week loafing around in Hong Kong. We also visited Hong Kong (and Debbi and Dave) at the beginning of our trip in November. Last November we went to see many of the tourist sites. We don't really feel like we need to go see them again, so we have spent a lot of time warming up Dave and Debbi's couch, eating great food, and cuddling Jasper (who is definitely one of the cutest babies in the whole world). Debbi must have decided that things were getting too boring because last week she threw herself down a flight of stairs and sprained a foot, so she could take us on a tour of the Hong Kong emergency room. Debbi is OK, but she can still occasionally be sighted hobbling down the streets of Hong Kong with a very stylish cane.

It is very strange to think that we return to Calgary in only a few days. I face our return with mixed feelings that I did not expect. Of course I am excited to see our friends and family in person instead of only over skype. I look forward to coffee dates and long chats to catch up with everyone. My biggest regret about our ten month long trip is how much I have missed at home. So much has happened in all of your lives and I wish that I could have been there. I have been surprised how terrifying it feels to come back home. So many things will change all at once. We both need to find jobs, we need to figure out what part of the city we want to live in then sell our condo and move there, we need to find a new church to become a part of. These choices are intimidating. Our decisions will likely be longer lasting than was our decision to travel. But the very scariest thing of all about going home is the weather. We will be leaving a year of lovely hot weather to return to the beginning of the long, cold, Canadian winter. I'm not sure why we planned things that way.

Back in Hong Kong

Blogging has become more difficult lately. Perhaps we are trying to not spend the last of our time in internet shops or maybe there is less to report. Anyway, we have arrived back in Hong Kong. It is nice to be back in a familar place with people we know and where transport is easy to figure out. It is much less intimidating to figure out the transit second time around. We are looking forward to spending our week here before heading back to Canada.

Delicious

We have not blogged in a while because we were busy lazing around in the sun on Tioman Island. We spent nearly two weeks on the island because we did not want to be trying to travel during the Hari Raya celebrations at the end of Ramadan. Hari Raya is a big deal here. It is as big as Christmas at home. Many people travel to spend the holiday with their families. It was ironic because so many businesses were closed on the island on the tenth and eleventh of September that, while the Muslim locals were eating goodies to celebrate the end of their fast, the tourists were on an accidental fast if they were not lucky enough to find an open convenience store where they could buy some cookies for lunch. We fared alright because we asked around about what would be open when and we stocked up on snacks beforehand.

There is not a lot to do on Tioman Island except sleep in late, read books on the deck by our room or under a shady tree by the beach, and swim or snorkel in the beautifully warm ocean with the bright coloured fish and coral. A few days ago we hiked through the rainforest to the other side of the island so we could relax on that beach instead. On our walk back two days later we saw giant monitor lizards (these ugly critters are all over the island), a bunch of cute little monkeys, two long narrow snakes with bright green bellies, and around 4.5 million mosquitoes.

Yesterday we crossed the Malaysian peninsula and now we are in Melaka. We did not have a good first impression. Our bus ran very late so we did not get into town until around midnight. When we got to the hotel where we had reserved a room, we found the door locked and no one answering the doorbell or telephone. We were in a strange town after midnight and we had to find a new place to stay. Luckily everything turned out OK, and we are staying at a place just down the street from where we originally planed to stay.

Today after sleeping in very late we decided to head over to Chinatown to have a look around. We had a lot of fun. There were lots of things to see and yummy things to eat. We browsed around some really nice shops. Finally we were tired and hungry, so we looked in our guidebook and saw that there was a restaurant nearby called Capitol Satay. When we got there we found a cue that went out the door and down the street. We thought it must be good if this many locals were waiting to get in and we decided we would get into the line and see how fast in was moving. It was not moving very fast. The friendly family behind us in line assured us that it was really good food and we should not leave Melaka without trying the satay, so we stuck it out.

Wow! It was worth the wait. We were directed to a buffet set up where we chose skewers of raw chicken, seafood, vegetables, tofu, and deep fried bread. When we got back to our table they brought cubed bread and cucumbers and placed a giant pot of satay sauce on a burner embedded in the center of the table. Satay fondue. I don't know what genius first thought this one up, but I think I love them. It was one of the most delicious meals of my life. Seriously. I think this rates right up there with European chocolate on my list of things I like to eat.

Indonesian Music

During our stay in Indonesia we really enjoyed the music scene. Most nights as we ate dinner there would be buskers who would come around play a song or two while we ate. It didn't seem to matter if we ate a food stall or restaurant it would usually include live music at some point.The busking is a little different than at home. The musician plays a song and then goes around to collect money. If the musician is good they usually finish the song and then collect from most people. If they are less than desirable someone usually pays them a lesser amount to go before they finish. Some of the bands busking can get very large. I remember one band had eight people including a poor guy who drew the short straw and had to carry around the double bass. On the ship we took from Kalimantan to Java we they had a band that played during our lunch. The second day the crew decided to join in on the singing and we were treated to a couple songs by the chief engineer. There is a mix of Indonesian music and old music from the west like guns and roses for example. Like in other countries Indonesia has one song that almost everybody knows and we can instantly recognize due to it's high usage. A few times I have heard shop keeps singing this song as we go through their store. Fun.

Flores

Dave and I decided that we would really like to visit the island Flores while we were in Indonesia. To get there we did a three day long bus and ferry marathon. We arrived in the town Labuanbajo tired, achy, and grumpy. We had a busy evening to arrange our flight out of Flores in time to leave the country before our visas expired, and to book bus tickets for the following morning so we could go to central Flores.

In the morning we left at six am on the regular bus to Bajawa. The bus ride takes an incredible twelve hours to cover 250 kilometers. When we got on the bus we were dismayed to find that the whole floor was covered in giant sacks of onions. We had to walk on the onions to get to our seats. The whole bus smelled of onions. We drove around town until there was no possible way to cram another person or article of luggage onto the bus then we hit the Trans-Flores Highway. This must be one of the most beautiful highways in the world. It twists and turns through lush forest, coffee, banana, and coconut plantations, and past occasional stunning vistas of the ocean and nearby islands. All along the highway we stopped to pick up more and more people and somehow they fit on the bus. Not far from Labuanbajo passengers on the bus began vomiting. Many people were vomiting. They vomited for the whole trip. I was glad that all I could smell was the many bags of onions. People in Indonesia don't seem to need pee breaks. We only stopped once on the whole trip. When we were finally getting to be within a few hours of our destination, we came upon a section of road that was under construction and was very slippery. After a very long wait and much animated conversation that we could not understand, our bus finally managed to inch around the construction, and we expected to be back on the road. Instead the bus pulled over again. Once again there was a lot of loud, excited conversation that we did not understand. Eventually the bus started to go again, but not all of the passengers were on it. We did not know why but were glad to get moving. As we rounded the next corner we came to the scariest moment of this trip, possibly of my life, when the bus came very close to careening off the muddy road and down a cliff. Luckily we did not. Once again the bus pulled over. The few passengers who had realised the danger in advance re-boarded the bus, and we continued on to Bajawa. I have never been so happy to get off a bus. I was not looking forward to our return trip.

In Bajawa we joined a tour to visit some of the nearby traditional villages. We both really enjoyed our tour. We learned a few things about the local people. Some of the ladies in the villages were making beautiful fabric on manual back strap looms. We also saw some of the amazing things that grow in this part of the world. At the end of the day we went to a natural hot spring to sit at the waterfall where the hot and cold rivers mix and make it a lovely temperature for bathing.

The next day we took another local bus to go to Riung. This trip was much less exciting than the last. The people on the bus were enjoyable to spend time with even though they spoke very little English. They enjoyed looking at the pictures we had taken lately. I took their picture and they took mine. As more and more people boarded the bus we tried to help people to fit in comfortably near us. There were two other tourists on the same bus as us. Even though we do not speak Indonesian we could tell that this Dutch couple (who had been part of our tour group the day before) was not very well liked on the bus. They complained about how long it took to leave town and how many people were squeezing onto the bus. The last straw with the others on the bus came when the couple refused to let someone sit in the isle beside them. Someone always sits there. A man had to stand for the entire six hour bus ride as a result. The people around us began muttering angrily (they politely included us in their conversation by saying "very bad" and pointing at the offending couple). Seriously, if you don't like how anything is done in a certain part of the world, you should probably just travel somewhere else instead of making a jerk out of yourself. Sometimes tourists can be very offensive. I hope that we are not often similarly inappropriate without realising it.

Riung turned out to be a very small town. Really the only touristy thing to do was to hire a boat and go snorkeling by the 21 islands of nearby Seventeen Islands Park. In Riung we began asking around about the options for getting back to Labuanbajo. We were hoping to find a way to avoid a sixteen hour bus ride of doom. The only other option that we found was a boatman who would take us to Labuanbajo for 2 million rupiah. That's a lot of money. In comparison, the bus would cost us between 100 000 and 200 000 each. We talked about it that night and decided that if we could barter the price down to 1 300 000 or less we would go by boat because the trip would be several hours shorter and we really wanted to avoid the bus. The next day the boatman approached us. His family wanted to go to an island near to Labuanbajo. We could come along for 1 million and he would throw in a half day trip to an island for snorkeling for free. We got the price down a little bit more then happily got our swimming gear together to go snorkeling for the afternoon. I think what happened was the boatman's family wanted to go home for Ramadan (he told us they were Muslim) but they could not afford to. The money we paid was enough to finance the whole trip for everyone, but also a great price for us.

We have been traveling in southeast Asia for nearly a year, but we had not yet tried snorkeling. The truth is we are not strong swimmers (I am particularly awful at swimming) and it seemed a bit terrifying. I'm sure that we were very entertaining to the boatman and his helper. We stood in the waist-deep water and stuck our faces in. After a couple tries we found that it was indeed possible to breath like this. Next we tried moving around a bit and found that the water here was very easy to swim in. We floated so easily that we could just lay in one spot and look at what was going on below us. We were excited to see some pretty fish and a bit of coral about the size of a pomelo. Eventually the boatman started waving his arms and yelling what direction we should swim to find coral. Apparently we still swam the wrong direction. He sent his Friend out to show us. I followed him (very slowly) and found an absolutely amazing display of colourful coral and even more colourful fish. Once Dave and I started to figure out what we were doing, we really loved snorkeling. It was so beautiful and interesting. Wow.

Our boat ride the next day was very enjoyable. It was much more comfortable than the bus. We left at 5 in the morning (yuck) and were in Labuanbajo by 3:30. The scenery was lovely. We enjoyed having the family on board. It would have been much more boring with just the two of us. Did you know that babies here don't wear diapers? Their parents just pack a lot of pairs of pants. Well now you know.

We are now in Singapore. We flew from Labuanbajo to Denpassar on an airline with the reassuring logo "Wings Air: Fly is Cheep". Then we flew to Singapore on Air Asia.

Goodbye to WWOOFing for now

Many of you know that we have chosen to spend some of our time while we travel volunteering on organic farms (wwoofing). Our wwoofing list has recently expired and we have decided we don't have time to renew it this trip. Our experiences on the farms we have visited have been very valuable. Our time spent wwoofing has turned out to be as much about learning about and participating in different cultures and living with people different then we are as it was about farming. I found it interesting how each of the farms we worked on had made their connection to wwoofing. The connection usually came from the west either by marriage or other some other relationship. In the Philippines it was the project of a dedicated peace corp volunteer who got the Ecna farm connected to wwoofing. When this relationship was healthy it made for a better experience and working environment. We were able to see some tropical plants grow. The food we were provided with was always good and it was good to be able to see how food is prepared in the home. We tried some interesting things like banana hearts, local ferns, and pig lungs - always served with rice. When we were on farms we ate rice three times a day. At first this felt unusual especially for breakfast but soon it became a normal part of our routine. Now when we go to a restaurant and have a omelet we comment on it would be nice if it came with some rice to fill us up. We learned that making organic compost can be a lot of work as this was by far the most labour intensive project given to us, but it was also rewarding because the progress made was easy to see. I have really valued our time on the farms we have visited and found it to be very important part of our trip . I hope we can try wwoofing in Canada and perhaps other countries in the future.

Interesting

When we were traveling in Indonesian Borneo, we found that they do not get many foreign tourists in that part of the country. As a traveler that means several things. Very few people speak English fluently and those that do all want to practice it on you. People yell out "hello mister" when they see us. Yes, they call me mister too. It can really startle me when someone yells hello mister as their motorbike whizzes past nearly brushing my arm. Because there were so few tourists we were unable to find an Indonesian phrasebook, so we brushed up our charade skills. Western food was unavailable. We only know how to say a few foods in Indonesian, so we ate a lot of those things. Finally, everyone stares at you. We took a two day boat trip to get from Borneo to Java. We bought second class tickets so we had a room with beds to sleep in. Just outside on the deck the locals traveling economy just lay down and sleep where ever they can find the space. We like the sunlight so we wanted to keep our curtains open. We saw several people walk past, do a double take, then come back to stare in at us. Most of the time this was just funny. Maybe some of them had never before seen people who look like us. At one point two men found us so intriguing that they stayed outside our window for a very long time watching us, laughing at us, and waving at us. They called people over so they could look too. They lifted up children so they could see better. A crowd grew outside the window. We felt like very awkward animals in the zoo. Eventually we could not handle it any longer so I waved good-bye to our audience and drew the curtain. Now that we are in Java, we are not the only tourists. Here it feels like we are only interesting when someone is trying to sell us something.

Ghost Town Beach

We have booked a trip on a boat over to the city of Surabaya on the island of Java for August the 2nd. With a couple of days to spare before our boat heads out we decided to go to a local beach a couple of hours north of where we are staying. We were told it could get busy on the weekend so we booked a room using most of our reaming cell minutes trying to convey my name to the hotel receptionist.

D as in dog. I hear her repeat "B" no D as in dog. A as in apple "pinapple".... eventually we ended up with "Ohh!! Mister David".

This and the fact we are staring to tire of eating mee goring(fried noodles) and nasi goring (fried rice) has led us to try and find a Indonesian phrase book to try and at least pick up a few basics as most people here only have limited English. With our hotel booked we head out in a shared taxi which ended up being just Marina and I. The first part of our drive was very slow as we wait in a traffic jam to get out of the city. Once we are out of the city we are able to pass and travel at speeds up to about 80 Km/h including times we pass next to the road congested with school kids. This made me nervous but kids here must be trained to not go onto roads and to listen for horns to warn of vehicles traveling behind them. We arrive at the hotel around noon and check in. The hotel wants a deposit for twice the cost of the room we decline and assure them we won't break anything and check out when we leave. Our room is basic and appears to be in a building shared with hotel employees or family members. We go out to check out the beach and area. It's very nice but empty. Usually this is a good thing but this has strange feeling to it. There are probably over twenty restaurants with seating for well over a hundred people lining the beach but they are all empty. Strange, but we enjoy the empty beach and eat at the hotel which also has very few guests. It does pick up a little bit on Saturday and even more on Sunday so by that point we are feeling the place is somewhat normal. Perhaps even though it's peak season for foreign tourists maybe it's not the peak for local tourists as that is almost all of their business.

We ask at the hotel about a bus back to Pontianak and are offered a ride to the bus terminal not far from the hotel. We get dropped off at the station and look for a bus after handing a map with the name of the town to a group of men they all study the map and eventually end up pointing at a bus. The bus they point at is having some kind of repairs to it which isn't a good sign but we are in no hurry and the driver tells us to hop on so we do. They finish the repair and we head back to town. About half way back we pull over to the side of the road with a flat tire and all four bus staff (the bus only seats about 15 people) jump out and change out the tire with great efficiency. Probably not the first time they have done it. The spare tire doesn't look to be in very good shape either but we made it back. People here have an incredible ability to take things in stride. Whether it's the lights going out a couple times a week or constantly making the same bus repairs. I hope as we experience the different way of living here we are able to learn from it and judge for ourselves what we feel is important as we reenter a western culture.

Indonesia

We are now in Pontianak in Indonesia. Pontianak straddles the equator. Our guidebook has actually marked the equator on the city map. The place we are staying at is several hundred meters south of the equator. Some of my first impressions of Indonesia are that it is chaotic, confusing, very poor, and even more friendly than it is poor. We are trying to figure out our travel plans for our stay here. It is definitely a case of too many cool things to see and too little time to do it in.

Mulling over our options

It seems amazing, but we have recently realized that this trip is quickly approaching its end. Two months from tomorrow we fly back to Hong Kong, and after a little more than a week to hang out with Debbi and Dave and meet Jasper we fly back home. I think when the time comes we will feel conflicting emotions; we have really enjoyed traveling and would love to do more, but we also look forward to spending time with family and friends and to finally being settled in one place. I am not looking forward to the Calgary winter.

As we think of our return home we are faced with a daunting number of questions. Where will we live? How do we want to live? What employment should we pursue, and will we be able to find work in the area of our choice? How can we live out our values?

In part, we chose to take this trip because it would give us a chance to step outside of our everyday lives so we could stop and choose how we would move forward rather than allowing our lives to be set without much conscious decision. Nevertheless, now that the time has come for us to make those choices, it feels pretty intimidating.

Oh well, tonight I won't think about these things. I'm going to bed early. Tomorrow we spend the day on the bus and end up in Indonesia. Once we are there, we need to find a travel agent who can help us figure out the schedule of infrequent boats between the many islands. When and where these boats are going will to a large extent determine where we will go while we are in the country.

Yes, No, Maybe

One of the highlights of our stay at Kebun was working with the Indonesian couple Sam and Luthie on the farm. They are responsible for most of the daily farm work at the Kebun. Our first task was to take apart the old goat barn as this is going to be converted into classrooms and sleeping quarters for future wwoofers. This will be a nice addition and make volunteering on the farm more enjoyable. As it was now we felt at times we were in the way and the farm owner, Adrian, and particularly his family, didn't like having us share the same space, but there really was no alternative. The new area for volunteers to stay apart from the family and other guests should solve that problem. Most days we set out to work with Sam. He would get started on current project and work with us until he had to let the goats out to pasture. We helped make a new goat run, plant terrace, and hang a net that will be used to create a canopy of tall growing vine plants. We also planted some fruit trees and some vegetable seeds. Sam and Luthie were very nice to work with and in the evening we could here them singing along to Indonesian music videos on the T.V. or talking to their six year old daughter who they left behind with Luthie's Mom in Indonesia. They didn't speak a lot of English but often understood what we were saying but found it difficult to respond in English. Sam would often respond to us with an emphatic YES when we were talking to him. If we looked confused he would change his answer to NO. If we still looked confused it was probably not a yes or no question and he would say "I don't know". One evening Sam sat with us and showed us how they cook chicken over a wood fire barbecue. We will be trying this at home as it was delicious. There are a lot of interesting projects on the go at the Kebun, and compared to some of the other farms they were very organized. We really enjoyed the work that we participated in here, and once the volunteer quarters are completed I'm sure they will do a great job of hosting future wwoofers.

A new kind of luxury

David and I have finished volunteering at the Kebun and we are back in Kuching. During our stay on the farm we came in contact with something that seemed to us to be a wonderful luxury:

a washing machine.

After some initial bad experiences with the local laundry services, Dave and I decided some months ago that we needed to do our own laundry. In most places this has meant hand washing everything in the bathroom sink and hanging it to dry anywhere that looked promising. It's not so bad, but we don't change our clothes until they are actually dirty. A washing machine really is an amazing thing. You can shove a whole bunch of clothing into it, turn the dial, and go drink tea or shovel soil for 45 minutes and come back to find everything is clean (except you if you were shoveling dirt in the Malaysian sun). I hope that when we return to Canada we can continue to see things like a washing machine, signs written in English, or being able to buy clothes in our size (especially if the shop keeper doesn't say "I have very big size for you") as luxuries. I think it helps me to enjoy life more when I am able to see simple everyday things through appreciative eyes.

On the Farm Again

Earlier this week Dave and I began volunteering on another organic farm. This time we are not far outside of Kuching, a major city on the southern tip of East Malaysia. It is a really beautiful place. The farm has many different kinds of animals including guinea fowl, heritage breeds of turkeys, chickens, goats, puppies, pigeons, and others. There is also a wide variety of plants including some local medicinal herbs. So far we have mostly been working on construction projects. We have been dismantling a goat shed that will eventually be converted into a classroom where people can come to learn about permaculture, and we have helped build a fence to guide the goats to pasture. Our accommodations are spectacular. The farm is a homestay where people pay to stay in one of two bungalows on the farm. One of the bungalows is not occupied, so we are staying there. It is very big and very classy. We will have to try to post some pictures. There are two bedrooms (in case we fight I guess), a kitchen, three eating areas, a living room, and a huge veranda that wraps around two sides of the house. It is really nice. After two and a half days of working on the farm we have gone on a brief holiday to attend the Rainforest World Music Festival. After the festival we plan to return to the farm and continue volunteering there.

Mulu Park and Kuching

After spending five days at Mulu National Park we have flown into Kuching. We really enjoyed our time out at the park. We did a couple of guided tours which were required to see anything. After the tours we took to walking the boardwalk. Our usually pattern was to walk a few steps and see some interesting bug, plant, or reptile and to stop and check it out, often truly amazed at what we were seeing. Dragonflies that looked like ferries because of their wings shining in the sun light. Bugs that looked like sticks. The park was full of interesting nature and critters which increased with every walk we took or maybe we just got better a finding them. We arrived in Kuching on Friday and have spent a couple of days wandering around here. Kuching is full and we have had to make a guesthouse change in order to find room as there is a running group in town and probably people showing up for the music festival next week already. Last night we met for dinner with the owner of the next farm we plan to visit. He seems very nice and has many interesting projects on the go. We plan to head out to the farm on Tuesday for a few days and get setteled in before we come back to town for the Rainforest World Music Festival next weekend.

Brunei Darussalam

After two ferry rides today, Dave and I are now in the tiny country of Brunei. Brunei is tucked between the northern and southern provinces of Malaysian Borneo. It is a very small and very wealthy country that is on our route as we travel southwest along Malaysia. We will only spend a couple days here before we move on, and we will likely spend our time checking out some lavish museums and mosques.

Food and Water

Our first step out of the cab and into the hostel gave me a very good feeling about the food here in Malaysia and it hasn't disappointed since. The restaurant right below our hostel has wonderful smelling and tasty food. Their is a certain ethnic diversity that coexists peacefully in Malaysia and makes it a little different than the other places we have visited. Islam is popular in this country bringing with it different food and culture. There is a large portion of restaurants that sell Indian food or a least foods that have been derived from Indian fare. I have yet to walk somewhere in Kota Kinabalu and not be enticed by the delicious smell of curries wafting from nearby restaurants or night markets. One night we went to the night market and got a grilled fresh tuna steak with a curry sauce, not something I would have thought of but very delicious. We have also happily wandered back into roti (fried flat bread) country. Instead of having banana and chocolate sauce roti that we had in Thailand there is a coconut jam called kaya that is very tasty. There are also savory roti here. We had a vegetable and egg roti that came with curry sauce and took roti to a whole new level. Next on the list we ate a nice Chinese meal of savory pork soup and a bowl of rice at the restaurant I was describing earlier that is below our hostel and always smells good as we walk by. Overall the food here is among the best we have had anywhere on our travels.

When we moved from the Philippines the weather was starting to get a little wet but somehow after a one hour flight we were to move into the dryer season of Malaysia. I'm still not sure how that works but it so far hasn't. After expressing concern about how wet it must get in the wet season to Marina she mentioned that the guide book refers to the fact that even though its the dry season. There is less of a wet/dry season here and it can pretty much rain anytime of the year. So far that has been the case with rain and sometimes heavy rain coming most afternoons. We have gotten used to carrying our rain gear with us most days when we head out for the day. Today we went to visit one of the near by Islands and have a beach day. We packed for trip the same as we do for most days. I brought my rain jacket and Marina brought her umbrella. We intended to get an early start which turned into a late morning start after a longer than normal breakfast talking with another hostel member who was debating climbing the summit of mount Kinabalu and then we took a stop at the market to pick up some food for the day. We ended up on the boat just before noon and planed to return around four. Around two o'clock it started to rain and we took shelter at a food restaurant and had a warm drink to wait out the rain. The rain slowed up for a while but didn't look like it was going away so when the boat company found us on the Island and offered us an earlier boat we decided to take it. We debated changing from our bathing suits but thought it could be a wet ride and why get more clothes than necessary wet. Wet was an understatement. I think the drier option may have been to swim back from the Island. As we waited for our boat the rain picked up began blowing under the shelter and getting us wet before our boat even arrived. By the time the boat arrived it was raining very hard and Marina said she had to put a towel over her face because the rain drops were hurting her face as the boat sped across the water. The rain continued as we crossed the ocean back to Kota Kinabalu driving under the canopy that was really only protecting a section of ocean next to the boat as the rain was coming down at a sharp angle. Just when we thought we couldn't get wetter the boat would spray up after a big wave then the wind would carry the boat's wave over us and the whole boat would yell out. There was a mixture of some people enjoying the wet ride while others were certainly not. When we arrived back at the harbor in Kota Kinabalu we climbed out of our boat as wet as I have possibly ever been but happy to have found our way back to land in the rain. We then walked back to our hostel in the rain deciding there is now way we could get any wetter that we already were. The nice thing about rain here is it can be a welcome change from the heat and when you are soaked to the bone and walking home you don't have to worry about freezing.

Beaurocrats

It is our last day in the Philippines and we have planed to send a package of souvenirs home because we don't want to be charged extra for overweight luggage this afternoon when we fly to Kota Kinabalu in Malaysian Borneo. David asks the helpful staff at our hotel where we can find a post office and we are happy to discover that there is a post office within an easy walking distance. We gather up our goodies and head for the post office. At the post office I approach the lady at the parcel counter.

"I want to send a package to Canada" I say.

"Where is it?"

"Here" I hold up my bag of things I want to send home.

"It's not packed." The lady looks at me disapprovingly.

"No"

"We don't have boxes."

"Is there somewhere nearby where we can get a box?"

"Roxas"

"Where is Roxas?"

"Beside Mercury Drugs"

"Where is Mercury Drugs?"

"Beside the doughnut shop." The lady looks at me and purses her lips. We are in a strange town and she has given no actual indication of the direction we should take to find Roxas and a box for our package. We decide that we are unlikely to get any more help here and head towards the main street. On the way out the door David says "What kind of post office doesn't have a box?" We actually find Roxas with no trouble at all and are amazed when the man there measures our things then takes a flat piece of cardboard and makes it into a box that fits everything perfectly in about a minute. We head back to the post office with our newly packed package. The lady is much more friendly now. She invites us to sit behind her desk while she weighs our box. 1.38 kilograms. She quotes a price. A very high price. I say:

"Can we send it surface?"

"I'm not sure we can do that. It would be very slow. Three or four months"

"That's OK. We don't go home until October. It will still beat us home."

"We couldn't track it" says the man at the next desk over.

"That's OK" I say.

The lady looks irritated and begins to look through a stack of papers. She quotes a price. I much nicer price. We pay the lady. She continues looking through papers.

"You have to pay the higher price." Says the lady (a little triumphantly in my opinion).

"Why?"

"It is too light"

"Pardon me?"

"It's too light. You have to pay for airmail. We can't send packages surface unless they weigh two kilograms." She pauses. "You could put more in the box."

"If I put more in the box it will cost less to send it?"

"Yes"

"Can I just pay you for two kilograms and send it like this?"

"No, it needs to be two kilograms."

"Can I put a rock in the box?"

The lady looks at me disapprovingly. "I think you would rather send a souvenir. You could buy something at Roxas."

As we are leaving to buy something to add to our package so it will be less expensive to mail it to Canada, the lady says:

"We're closed for lunch between twelve and one."

When we get to the street, I glance at David. I think he is scanning the ground for rocks. After lunch David and I return with some treats purchased at a nearby grocery store and add inexpensive candies until our box weighs exactly two kilograms and the lady says she can now mail it to Canada for us. We head for the airport triumphant.

At the airport we go through security, check our bags, pay the departure tax, and go through immigration without incident. We go around the corner and find that we have to go through another security check. We put our shoes and carry on bags on the conveyor belt then walk through the metal detector. Once through the detector the lady working there decides I look suspicious and feels me down. Apparently criminals store something dangerous in their bras. I walk over to pick up my bag. The lady by the x-ray machine looks at me disapprovingly:

"You have an umbrella in your bag." She says accusingly.

"Yes" I say.

"You have to pack umbrellas in your checked baggage."

"Oh" I say as I wonder how you could hijack a plane using a small folding umbrella. I pull the offending polka dot umbrella from my bag. "What should I do now?"

"You can go back to the check in counter and put it in your bag."

"My bag is gone."

"They will find it for you."

We turn to head back to the first desk. The security guard stops us and says David can't go back. I walk alone through the metal detector with my bag, setting off the alarm as I go. It takes them a long time to find my bag. I feel bad. As I am waiting I notice a list of items that are not allowed in carry on baggage. Umbrellas are on the list. The list is only displayed on counters that are not in use. When the luggage guy returns with my bag I apologetically put my umbrella in the bag and return to the security counter. This time I get through with no trouble at all. When I get to where David is sitting he says:

"She stole more umbrellas while you were gone."

We walk to the waiting area.

"I'm thirsty." I say "Do you see where I can get some water?"

"Here, I still have some." David says as he passes me his water bottle. David made it through security twice with half a bottle of water (and we all know how criminals like to drink water while they fly), but I am stopped for a silly umbrella.

Our flight was uneventful, and we have safely arrived in Malaysia.

Interesting things found in Philippines

The Philippines has been a great stop on our travels. With it not being connected to other popular South East Asia travel destinations there is a lot less tourism in the areas we have traveled and I think this applies to the whole country in general. Sometimes I find myself doing a double take when we pass other white people. We have received a warm welcome at all houses we have visited and helpful people have helped us when we are lost or need help. In contrast, we both have had blatant but failed pick pocket attempts. The efforts of some to reuse dish/bath/rain water as toilet water and turning all vegetable waste into compost at the farm contrasts the actions of others when we have seen plastic containers being thrown out the window of vehicles. In certain areas trash lines the streets and pathways. We were once in a grocery store and placed our cloth reusable bag on top of our groceries. On the way out of the store we were confused to see that we had received a plastic bag with our cloth bag packed neatly inside. Not really our intended result. We both think it's strange that it is acceptable here for men and children to pee on just about any wall or structure they can find. Just before writing this post we saw a man peeing on the rear wheel of a jeepney (local public transportation). The jeepneys are fun looking but they expel huge amounts of stinky exhaust as they pass and we learned this could be the fuel here contains lead. Christianity is huge in the Philippines. Religious slogans and icons fill the streets, homes, and public transportation vehicles. My favorite wacky slogan was in the jeepneys some had a sign that said "God knows Judas not pay". One of the buses we rode on had this picture of superhero Jesus.

I enjoyed seeing the way native culture was celebrated. During the election victory party of a local congressman there was traditional dress and dancing as well as other non traditional performances. There has also been an abundance of flowers blooming on almost every stop in our travels perhaps because it's the beginning of rainy season. Despite some unpleasant experiences there is beauty to be found both in the people and the nature of the Philippines.

Rice Terraces

The northern Philippines is known for its impressive rice terraces.
The rice terraces are one of those things that you just can't come to
this part of the world and not take the time to go see. David and I
decided that we would go to Banaue and Batad: two towns that are very
well known for their spectacular displays of rice terraces. The rice
terraces in this area were built more than two thousand years ago with
gravity fed irrigation systems that looked to be still in use today.
At Banaue the terraces are visible from the highway. We walked from
town up the highway for two kilometers to the viewpoint. The scenery
here is stunning. The rice terraces are sculpted into the sides of the
mountains in graceful curving lines. At the viewpoint old people
waited wearing traditional costumes in the hopes that tourists would
give them a few pesos in exchange for a posed picture or two. I made
David photograph a group of particularly cute ladies who were finding
the rainy afternoon chilly and wearing toques under their head dresses
and jackets over the rest of their costumes. The next day dawned
bright and sunny (and hot). We hired a tricycle to take us to the
Batad junction. A tricycle is a motorcycle with a cute little side car
that (sort of) fits two. The road was rough and steep. As a result the
pace of our journey was quite slow. When we got to the junction we
gratefully hauled our battered bodies out of the tricycle and set out
for a fairly demanding, but beautiful, two hour hike to get to Batad.
In Batad we found a very nice guesthouse with great views of the
terraces. In Batad the terraces are in the shape of a giant
amphitheater. The acoustics are great; in the evening one house put on
their radio and everyone in town listened to the music (it's OK though
because everyone in town - probably in most of the Philippines - would
choose to listen to country music). I forgot to mention in my last
post about our trip to Sagada that on our six hour bus trip we
listened to possibly every Garth Brooks song ever released - even some
Christmas ones. You may be interested to know that yes, there are
enough Garth Brooks songs to last for most of a six hour bus trip.
Another interesting fact about music in southeast Asia is that no one
is shy about singing aloud whenever and where ever they feel like it.
Sometimes they sing along with the radio, but many times they just
sing. I'm a little concerned that we might be picking up this habit
and one day will get some very funny looks when we start singing on
the c-train. On the topic of music, the Philippines is a very
Christian country. We were in a major mall today and the music they
were playing loudly throughout the mall was Christian pop. Dave says
he even noticed they were playing "As the Deer" in the coffee shop. In
Batad we went hiking on the terraces. I don't know if you have
noticed, but rice terraces are steep. We walked up and down an
unfathomable number of stairs. We climbed up as high as we could to
see the terraces from the top then we went down one very long flight
of stairs to see a really lovely waterfall at the bottom of the
valley. By the end of the day I was exhausted. We went to bed very
early and were up very early the next morning to hike back out in time
to catch the 9:00 jeepney back to Banaue.

Off to Sagada

Yesterday we took the bus north to Sagada. The trip is only 150 kilometers, but because of the incredibly steep and winding roads it takes around six hours. For much of the trip we were surrounded in thick fog and could only see the occasional black and white silhouette of a pine tree. From time to time the fog would lift like the red velvet curtain at the beginning of a play and reveal mountainsides covered with magnificent pine forests, or, more often, the giant, emerald stairs of vegetable or rice terraces. Once I saw a giant billboard listing the ten commandments lest some traveler forget them on his or her journey and fall into sin. We passed places where part of the road had fallen down the hill leaving a big gash in the highway. There were also places where the rocks from recent landslides needed to be lifted from the road for our bus to pass.

When we arrived in Sagada we found a quaint touristy town that reminds us a bit of Waterton. There are nice restaurants, great scenery, and souvenir shops selling locally made crafts. We found a very nice guesthouse to stay in, and we plan to spend a few days here.

Leaving Enca

We got to try our hand at roasting coffee last week. They have roasted
coffee here at Enca for years. Grandma Cosalan is the official coffee
roaster of the family. She hand roasts every batch and considering she
is in her eighties she roasts an impressive amount of coffee. In a
local taste test the hand roasted coffee faired better then the coffee
roasted by the roasting machine. So we followed tradition and built a
fire where they have used rebar to make a grill to fit a large wok.













In this wok we placed the unroasted coffee beans and stirred constantly
for about one hour until the coffee looked finished. During the
roasting the coffee lost about twenty five percent of its original
weight and it smelled very good by the time it was finished. Olive
told us that when she was a child she could smell the coffee being
roasted as she came home from school. Occasionally she would mix up
the smell of roasting peanuts with the coffee roasting and be
disappointed when she arrived at home because she thought she would
eat an after school snack of peanuts. We also roasted some peanuts and
they do make a nice snack still warm with some raisins. As I am
writing this post we are getting ready to leave Enca. It has been a
very nice place to spend six weeks. It has been nice to stay in one
place for a while and watch the changing of seasons. When we arrived
it was the end of the dry season and we are now heading into rainy
season. This has made significant changes at the farm. Flowers and
trees have gone into full bloom and the corn we planted at the
beginning of our stay is now above waist height.













We also are making plans to walk to Acop from the farm earlier in the day as the
rain which usually comes in the afternoon can make for some interesting
river crossings. Last week we had to balance a tree across the river
in order to pass. One of the brothers Bob Cosalan makes the trip down
to the farm most days and sometimes after a good rain we joke he's
going to have to swim to get back home. I'm really not sure how he
makes it home. We are grateful for the hospitality of the Cosalan
family especially Olive and Marilyn. They have included us in the
family celebrations that have taken place here during our stay and
helped us find our way around the area. It will be sad to leave but we
are looking forward to seeing some other places in the Philippines
before our visas expire.

Bamboo shoots

It is the beginning of the rainy season. When we first arrived at Enca farm five weeks ago, almost every day was hot and sunny. We are in the Cordillera Mountains in North Luzon: the place with the coolest weather in the Philippines, so daytime highs were only around thirty degrees. During our stay the weather has changed. Now most mornings are sunny and hot, but in the afternoon clouds usually roll in and the temperature drops a few degrees. Many days it rains during the afternoon or night. When it rains it rains very heavily. I bet that the amount of rain that has come down here over the last five weeks is more precipitation than Calgary gets over an entire year. I'm sure that the rain gets heavier and more frequent over the next few weeks.

All this rain means that it is getting very green. Plants seem to spring up when you turn your back. In the last couple weeks we have sometimes walked through a part of the farm where we have walked many times in the past and it is so changed that I wonder if I have taken a wrong turn somewhere because nothing looks familiar. In the midst of all this growth, bamboo shoots are coming up all over the place. Bamboo plants grow in groves. It looks like many trees all clustered together, but underground it is one giant plant. Well when it starts to rain the bamboo plants send up new shoots. The size of the shoots can vary a lot and is dependent on the variety of bamboo. You likely have enjoyed eating bamboo shoots as a part of a stir fried dish at a Chinese restaurant. They are delicious. A few days ago we went over to Olive's house and found a giant funny looking thing on her table where she usually keeps some vegetables. We soon found out that this monstrosity was a bamboo shoot that had grown just outside Olive's backdoor. We are told that Bamboo is very strong: Olive had to cut off a second shoot from her plant because it lifted her table off the ground overnight.

The next day Olive showed us how to prepare bamboo shoots. When we touched to shoot it surprised us by having a fuzzy, velvety exterior. I don't know if most varieties feel like this or not. Olive took a giant knife to the shoot to peel off the outside, then she sliced the flesh into very thin disks. She told us that at this stage the bamboo was very bitter and not yet good to eat, so we tried a bite. It's true. Raw bamboo is very bitter and not good to eat. Olive put the bamboo in a pot of water and brought it to a boil then drained off the water and rinsed the bamboo. A taste test indicated that it would require a second boiling. Olive told us that some varieties of bamboo will be sweet after being boiled only once, but this one went back into the pot. After a second rinse the bamboo was sauteed with garlic and ginger and attacked along with a pot of rice and some chicken. Yum.

The scariest pest

When we were still in Calgary planning this trip I wondered if we
would come across any critters or insects during our travels that
would really freak me out. Well, we have seen many things. We have
seen rats. A highlight were two giant fat rats frolicking in the lobby
of our hotel right by the restaurant. We have seen lizards, but we
think they are cute. We have seen giant spiders, cockroaches, brightly
coloured caterpillars, clouds of tiny moths that all seem to want to
go up my nose, and many mosquitoes. We have seen bugs that we could not
identify. We have seen snakes - the cobra was pretty scary. After
reading this list, you might be surprised to know that the scariest
pest of all is ants. Ants are small. I often don't even see them
before I find that there are approximately forty-five ants up the legs
of my pants biting me everywhere. One of the major problems with finding
that ants are the scariest pest I have encountered is that I know I will still
find them sneaking around trying to get a bite of me when I return to Calgary.
Yipes!

Coffee

One of the crops at the farm we are staying at is arabica coffee.
While we stay here we are drinking the organic coffee from last year's
harvest. It is very good. Last week the trees bloomed. It only lasted
three days, but it was stunning. Tiny, beautiful flowers lined every
branch. The whole valley was filled with the fragrance of coffee
blossoms: a floral mix of gardenia and jasmine. Thousands of bees
descended on the trees until the whole area hummed with their song.
Olive tells us that the coffee berries will not be ready for harvest
until December. It will be Enca farm's second harvest of coffee beans.
David and I hope that before we leave here we will have the chance to
help roast some of the coffee beans. They roast the beans by hand in a
giant wok over the fire. It takes around an hour. We think it would be
a great project for a rainy afternoon.

Steaming crap for my birthday

David and I decided to go out to celebrate my birthday a few days
early while we were in Baguio. We went to an excellent restaurant that
serves local, organic foods. The meal was amazing. On the
recommendation of Greg, who writes for Lonely Planet Philippines, and
who visited the farm we are staying at to check out Enca farm and
Wwoofing, we decided to try a local specialty with our desserts: civet
cat coffee. Civet cats are a kind of wild cat that lives in this area.
They like to eat coffee beans. I don't know who discovered this in the
first place, but if you take the coffee beans that have been digested
by the civet cat and roast then brew them they make what is considered
one of the best coffees in the world. Greg told us that it would cost
$50 to try civet cat coffee in London but only 150 pesos (around $3)
to try it here. A three dollar coffee is pretty extravagant in Baguio,
but we thought it would be a fun splurge. The coffee was very good,
but I found it strange to get my mind around the fact that I was
sipping a hot mug of poop.

We spent the actual day of my birthday in Acop. We skyped with family
members and enjoyed the chance to catch up. David baked a chocolate
cake and served it with whipped cream and fresh mangoes. We shared
dinner and cake with the family who owns the farm we are volunteering
at.

Routine

Sometimes it seems that time moves more quickly when I settle into a
routine. The days melt into one another, and time passes while I don't
notice it. We wanted to spend a longer time in one place so we made
plans to stay at Enca Farm for six weeks. Suddenly over two weeks have
passed and we are more than a third through our time here. I wonder if
the rest of our stay will pass just as rapidly.

Each morning we get up at around seven o'clock and get ready for the
day. We only spend around six hours a day working on the farm, but we
work hard during that time. We dig, weed, haul, make compost, plant,
find dead fall for fire wood, or do other tasks. I think that David
finds the work easier than I do, but sometimes that just means that he
does more of it. By the end of the day we are both pretty tired, and
we sleep well at night. We prepare most of our own meals. We walk over
to Olive's house to get ingredients for our meal, then we come back
and cook in our cabin. We have a one-burner propane stove and a clay
stove. The clay stove is a clay stand that holds a pot above a bowl
where you build a small fire. We have been trying to get the hang of
it because it is neat and because firewood is free here (we just have
to collect it from the forest), but propane is expensive. There is a
steep twenty to thirty minute walk from the closest place that it is
possible to drive to, so I also feel bad for the person who has to
haul in a full propane tank, so I don't want to make them do that more
often than necessary. We both enjoy cooking and we have not often been
able to cook on our trip, so we like having the chance to cook. It
lets us eat the foods we prefer (i.e. less meat than locals eat) and
sometimes, when we can find all the ingredients, we can make comfort
foods from home. Cooking three meals a day does, however, take a lot
of energy when we are also working hard on the farm. Sometimes Olive
makes a big pot of something yummy and we share a meal with her. When
she does this we appreciate the break and enjoy the Filipino food. So
far it seems that the favourite foods here are rice, meat, and sweets.
We bought a jar of peanut butter (homemade locally) so sweet that we
think it would be a very sugary icing. By the time that we finish
cooking dinner it is usually dark and we eat by candle light. After
dinner we read for a while using candles for light, then we go to bed
early so we will be ready for the next day's work. Life here quickly
falls in to a quiet, comfortable routine that we are enjoying. Most
Filipinos are Christian, so we get Sundays off each week. This weekend
we will be in Baguio, the nearest city to the farm. We will stay until
Tuesday because we need to extend our visas. On Tuesday we will head
back to the farm and back to our routine.

Our first week at Enca Farm

We have picked a very nice place to settle in to for the next six
weeks. It's a very nice location about an hour form Baguio. To get
here we took a jeepney from Baguio to the small town of Acop where
Marilyn one of the sisters of the family farm has a house which we can
stay at when she has a spare room. From there we either take a jeep or
walk down a very steep mountain road to a river valley then walk up
the other side of the valley for about ten minutes to arrive at the
farm. Marilyn told us during our correspondence with that we would be
staying in a hut. This is the nicest "hut" I have ever seen. It has a
small kitchen and an en suite bathroom. We have a constant supply of
water about thirty feet from our door except when it's diverted to
water crops. Outside our front door there is a lime tree and a nice
flower bed. We are enjoying the work here. We have gathered dry leaves
to start a compost pile, then we weeded, prepared and planted corn and
snow pea terraces. One of my highlights of staying here so far was
during our farm tour Olive, Marilyn's sister pointed out some small
cherry tomatoes that grow wild here at the farm. They are delicious
like wild strawberries at home. We are able to cook when we want but
so far we have enjoyed shared meals with the other guests and Olive.
Tonight was our turn to cook so we gathered up a bag of wild tomato's
and made a vegetarian chili with various other herbs and vegetables we
found on the farm. There is no electricity or running water here so it
feels a lot like camping except for the big fancy cabin. Most Sundays
for our day off we plan to leave the farm and either stay at Marilyn's
house in Acop or take a jeepney into Baguio pick up things we run out
and enjoy the city for the day.

We are in the Philippines

We thought we would post a quick note to let everyone know we safely arrived in the Philippines. We got our exit stamp from Vietnam with less than an hour to spare then had an uneventful overnight flight and bus ride to arrive in Baguio. We will spend the night here and head out to Enca farm tomorrow morning. We met the owner this afternoon in Baguio and she seems very nice. Philippines so far seems different than the other places we have visited. It makes us think of the colourful countries of central America or Mexico.

Northern Vietnam

The thing to see during any trip to Vietnam seems to be Halong Bay. If
you have only seen a few pictures of Vietnam, you have doubtless seen
a photo of Halong Bay. It is the place where giant pieces of stone jut
out of the ocean. We knew that it would be touristy, but we decided
that we would like to go anyways. We got on an overnight bus to Hanoi
then took the train from Hanoi to Hai Phong. We had planed not to stay
in Hai Phong but to take the ferry directly to Cat Ba Island and stay
there instead. However, when we got to the ferry pier we knew that
they were trying to scam us on the price of the ferry ticket so we
decided to spend the night in Hai Phong and take the ferry in the
morning because it seemed that most companies only ran boats in the
morning. We went back the next morning and were disappointed to find
the exact same set up. If you are a foreigner and want to get from Hai
Phong to Cat Ba you have to buy your ticket from the shady seeming
lady under the umbrella on the street for twice the going rate. None
of the companies will sell a ticket directly to you. We did enjoy our
night in Hai Phong. We found some good restaurants and some nice,
helpful people, but as soon as we approached the pier we found it to
be a really ugly place were everyone seemed to be aggressively trying
to rip us off.

We eventually decided to swallow the increased cost of tickets for a
boat that they would not let us see before we put down the money. Once
on the ferry we really enjoyed our trip to Cat Ba Island which is in
the middle of Halong Bay. The scenery is stunning, and the town is a
really nice place to visit. We had an amazing hotel room with great
views of the harbour for ten dollars a night.

The view from our room

We spent time at the beach one day and went on a boat tour of Halong Bay
the next. After too few relaxing days on Cat Ba we caught the early
morning ferry back to the mainland (for less than half of the cost of
our tickets in) and made the connection to the train we wanted back to
Hanoi with one minute to spare. On the train we decided that motion
sickness may be more prevalent here than at home. It was not the first
time that we have been near to someone who vomited for an entire train/
bus ride. Yuck.

We had a short stay in Hanoi where we enjoyed sipping coffees while
watching the chaotic traffic. Later we went to see a water puppet
show. Water puppetry is a traditional art form here and we really
enjoyed the show. Some of the members of the orchestra looked a bit
bored, but I might look bored too if I put on the same show five times
a day everyday.

I am writing this as we ride the train from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City.
On the train we have two older ladies and an undisclosed number of
mice for room mates. The ladies are very cute. They do not speak
english and we do not speak Vietnamese, but we have managed to
communicate a few things. One lady told us through hand signals that
the glasses prescription that she needs for each eye is quite
different, but someone made a mistake with her glasses and put the
lenses on the wrong sides. She was joking that she could hold her
glasses off to one side and look through only one lens. I joked that
she should try wearing her glasses upside-down. Everyone thought it
was very funny. I think it might have actually worked better than
right-way-up because I saw her wearing them upside-down to read
several hours later.

The ladies are checking out the postcards we were writing

Our other room mates chewed through the side of
our cloth shopping bag and enjoyed some of our crackers during the
night. We plan to spend a couple days in HCMC before we fly to
Manilla. From Manilla we take a six hour bus ride north to Baguio.
From there it is a jeepney ride to the town of Acop. We will be
volunteering at a farm near Acop for several weeks. They do not have
electricity, so I imagine that we will not have access to internet
unless we go into town for something. We will do our best to stay in
contact from the Philippines, but it may not be very frequent contact.

Beautiful Vietnam

Vietnam is very beautiful and reminds us of British Columbia. The
fields here are full of crops, mostly rice but some other things as
well. I'm not sure if this is because Vietnam receives more rain than
the other countries we visited previously or we are approaching the
time of year when the previously visited countries have crops as well.
One of our friends form Harmony Farm said that everybody works in
Vietnam. From what I have seen I think this to be true. There is very
little begging or poor people in the places we have traveled through.

After leaving the Mekong delta we took a night train half way up the
coast to Hoi An. Hoi An is a very nice little town with french
buildings in the old part of town. It is surrounded by neon green rice
fields and just a few kilometers from some very nice beaches. We
enjoyed browsing through the old part of town and looking through it's
many local art shops. The streets in Hoi An are also lined with
tailors ready to make custom garments. Marina and I both had a pair of
pants made as they tend to be a difficult garment to find in our size
here. We could have defiantly spent more time in Hoi An but that has been
true of most places we have visited in Vietnam or even South East Asia
for that matter. We had read about Bach Ma National Park and after
looking into our options decided the best place to visit the park was
from Hue. We hired two moto bike drivers to take us from Hue to the
park gate and from there we walked in to a waterfall and swimming hole.
Bach Ma is a very beautiful park with all kinds of different plants
and insects surrounding us as we walked through the thick jungle.
Normally you can pay to catch a ride up to see the top of the Bach Ma
mountain but the road was under construction so this option was
unavailable. Given that the road was closed this made for a very nice
and quiet day of walking up to the hike starting point and then
walking to the falls. Very few vehicles passed us on our way to the
hike and we only saw one other group on the hike. This area saw heavy
fighting during the American war as the Americans set a base
on the top of the mountain. I would not have guessed from what we
saw that the area had seen heavy bombing. Either the jungle has been
persistent or the area we visited was passed over. Along with the
enormous human tragedy of war nature is another causality.

Mekong Delta

David and I left Cambodia and entered Vietnam by taking an Express boat on the Mekong River. The scenery was beautiful. There were only three other passengers on the boat, so it was a relaxed, quite trip. The sun set over the river while bathing children waved and yelled their hellos. The boat dropped us off in the Vietnamese city Chau Doc. On our first night in Chau Doc we found a street vendor who sold us big, delicious bowls of pho for around a dollar each. Yum. The next morning we enjoyed sitting by the main street sipping Vietnamese coffee and watching traffic go by. There are clearly more traffic rules here. All adults wear helmets while riding their scooters. We never see more than two adults on a scooter. There does not seem to be any rules about how many kids you can pack on there with the two adults though. It is amazing how much stuff can be moved on one scooter or bicycle. We have seen more than once someone moving a refrigerator on the back of their scooter. Fridges here are not as big as those in Canada, but it is still an amazing sight.


After a couple relaxing days and a little bit of wonderfully cooling rain in Chau Doc, we took a bus to Can Tho. In Can Tho we woke up very early one morning to be at the river by 5:30 where we hired a boat to take us to see two nearby floating markets. The markets were really neat. People stack their boats very full of whatever it is that they want to sell (mostly fresh produce) then they head to the market where they pull their boats alongside the boats of potential buyers. The second market was much smaller, but we liked it better because the boats were small and mostly powered by rowing. The boats could be packed much closer together than where they were powered by motors. We went right through the center of the market. Our driver just pushed up against boats until they parted a bit and we could pass between.


Our driver bought some fruit that we did not recognize and shared some with us. It looked a little like a very round mango. The skin was green, and when she peeled it with a knife the flesh was white. There were some large smooth black seeds in the middle. It was very yummy. David and I bought some crispy, tasty, flat bread before we left the market and headed back to town.

Cambodia: a dark past and a hopeful present

Our time in Cambodia was very enjoyable. It's unthinkable how just a
few decades ago this country was in complete disorder. In most ways
the country has just moved on, I guess what else can you do. There is
a high percentage of disabled people compared to what we are used to
seeing and have seen other places on our travels. In our time in Phnom
Penh we visited the Tuol Slung museum. This is an old school in the
center of Phnom Penh that the Khmer Rouge turned into a torture
grounds and prison. One of the members from the Harmony farm commented
how a location as ordinary as a school could so quickly be turned into
a place of terror, I agreed with his comment. During the height of the
Khmer Rouge takeover there were one hundred people a day being killed
a day at this location. Ironically, during the reign of the Khmer
Rouge one quarter of the population died in the name of creating an
equal society. Upon first entering the museum I had an uneasy feeling,
barbed wire is coiled around the courtyard, you walk through the
school rooms and there is a bed in each room and a method of keeping
the prisoners shackled to the bed. There is old Khmer Rouge black and
white photographs used for documentation in some of the rooms showing
a prisoner looking extremely malnourished and sometimes covered in
blood. As the day moves on it becomes difficult to believe the
atrocities that occurred here, the sun is fully out and children can
be heard playing from all parts of the museum and Phnom Penh moves
about like all the other Asian cities we have visited. Although it was
a difficult morning I found this to be important to learn about the
what the people of the county we visited have been through.

There are still signs of inequality in Cambodia. I don't think I have seen so
many SUV's in all of Asia including a few Hummers (seems very
impractical for narrow Asian city streets) as well a some larger
living accommodations protected by big fences and barbed wire. On the
other end a larger amount of beggars than we have seen in other places
as well. We also noticed a higher level of corruption in Cambodia.
Every trip into Siem Reap the truck driving us into town would be
pulled over and be required to pay a "fee" before being allowed to
proceed. I'm not sure what the consequences would be if you didn't pay
but when Harmony Farm was getting charged "fees" to move their house
the director was adamant that they be payed. Another example of
Cambodian people hurting themselves, is the lady's booth who is setup
close to Harmony Farm selling school book packages to tourists and
that she says go to the school, but when the tourists leave she puts
them back out on her shelf to be sold again taking from the children
of her own village. Given what the country has been through I think
it's doing very well. Aside from the few incidences of corruption the
people were all very good people who have suffered what is
unthinkable. For a good historical biography on what has happened here
in Cambodia Marina and I both read and recommend "First they killed my
father". This is the story of Khmer Rouge told through the eyes of a
five year old girl.

Fire

On Thursday afternoon there was a wild fire on the land adjacent to Harmony Farm. Sam, three of the boys, and the monks from the nearby pagoda fought the fire and were able to keep it, for the most part, off Harmony Farm's land. David and I arrived at the farm for our afternoon's work very soon after the fire passed. It had burned right up to the fence on three sides of the land, but only burned a few square meters of the farm. When we arrived the land around the farm was still smoldering and the fire flared up in several places.

Marli surveying the damage

The neighbours lost everything but their houses. Their banana trees should grow back, but they have lost this season's crop. I imagine that they do not have any savings to see their family through this time and it will be a very difficult year for them.

The following afternoon the fire flared up again and this time it burned part of Harmony Farm. The chicken house was completely lost, and many of the chickens died. Many young fruit trees were burned as well. The fire came within a few meters of the house, but thankfully it was not burned.

The chicken house

If anyone would like to donate some money towards rebuilding after the fire, or for any of Harmony Farm's other programs, you could set that up by emailing Marli at marli@harmonyfarmcambodia.org

Harmony Farm

We have just finished our three weeks at Harmony Farm. We have really enjoyed our time at this farm and would have stayed longer but we must move on before our Vietnam visa expires. One of the greatest strengths of this organization is that it run locally by a Cambodian director. There is lots of projects on the go right now. They have just purchased an old house and are in the process of having it relocated on to the farm. They also have plans to build a plant nursery on the farm. They have a moto shop and a hairdresser that give the older students a chance to learn some skills that could lead to potential jobs. This also raises money for the organization.



On friday we decided to get our hair cut. It was perhaps the first time they have cut red hair and I found myself surrounded by the locals waiting at the hairdresser. I decided which hair style I wanted by pointing at a poster. One man that lived at the house we were staying at and happened to be at the hairdresser said I chose the "Thailand Cut".

The young man seemed particularly awkward when Marina asked to have her hair cut also. I was very pleased with the cut and it feels good to have short hair again. Marina wasn't quite as happy with her cut but thinks that if we get some scissors and touch it up it will be good. I usually go for cheap hair cuts according to Marina but this a new low with both cuts costing us 6000 Riel (about $0.75 each). If you are interested there is more information about the farm on their website http://www.harmonyfarmcambodia.org/.

Living in small town Cambodia

We are volunteering at Harmony Farm. Two weeks ago, when we set out for the farm, we intended to stay for one week. Now it looks like we will be here for nearly three weeks instead. Harmony Farm is located in Beng Mealea, Cambodia. It is less than one hundred kilometers from Siem Reap.

Beng Mealea is a very small town, and is quite remote. In town there is the fantastic ruins of a temple built by Suryavarman II the same guy who built Angkor Wat (I'm sure that both were actually built by his servants and he never got his fingernails dirty). Beng Mealea temple is amazing. There are giant trees growing through the intricately carved stones.






As a result of the temple Beng Mealea gets some tourists and is able to generate some income from them, but most people in the town are quite poor. Harmony Farm is an important part of this community. It is an orphanage that houses more than twenty children. It is a free school that teaches English and vocational training to any children who are able to attend. This is really important because many kids are not able to attend the government school for various reasons including the cost of the uniform. Harmony Farm provides free breakfast for any children who come each morning. Finally, Harmony Farm is also a farm. They are starting a permaculture farm so that one day they can be self sufficient. This is where David and I spend our days. They have some big plans for the near future including building a new residence for the children, and building a nursery for plants. It looks like these projects will not get going during our stay at the farm, but we are able to help with some of the preliminary work, and we have been spending some time preparing more garden beds for planting. The work that we are doing at the farm is not that exciting, but it is giving us the wonderful opportunity to, for a short time, be a part of a charming community.

Beng Mealea is a small community. We are already beginning to recognize many of the people who we pass one the streets when we walk from the house we stay in to the farm. Many of the locals are beginning to recognize us too (not just because we are white; they can tell us apart from the other tourists). When we walk to and from the farm, children yell hello and wave to us. A group of girls has learned my name and they chase me down in the street calling out "Malina, Malina". The children of one family we pass each day get their English confused and they yell bye bye as we approach then hello as we walk away after we pass their house. Many of the locals have let us know in various ways that the work that Harmony Farm does is valuable to their community.


In a typical day in Beng Mealea, we wake up early and see the red sun rising in the smoky sky while we get dressed and ready to go. We walk down the street to have a hot bowl of noodle soup for breakfast while the restaurant owners' giggling youngest daughter plays peek-a-boo with us.


We walk half an hour to get to the farm where we work a few hours until the sun and the heat chase us back into town for a lengthy lunch break in the shade. It is approaching the hot time of year here and the temperatures are in the high thirties at midday. We often spend our break reading or catching up on little things that need to get done. In the middle of the afternoon we walk back to the farm and work again until around five o'clock when we head back home. On the way we often walk with a group of children heading home from the government school. They practise their English on us. How do you do? What is your name? How old are you? On our way we often stop to buy a mango. The shop owner peels and slices it and we use toothpicks to eat slices of mango. Juice drips down our chins as we eat. When we get home "Ma" prepares dinner: usually stir fried vegetables with egg and pineapple over rice. After dinner we bathe in a small room made from grass panels. Inside there is a very large clay jar full of water and a plastic scoop. You scoop water over your head to shower. I wear a sarong tied just below my armpits the whole time I bathe (it would be indecent not to). David can shower just wearing his underwear. The rules of modesty are not as strict for men. After we have cleaned off and cooled down in the water, we have a cup of green tea, chat with the other volunteers, and head to bed early. Bed is a mat on the floor beneath a mosquito net. It takes a little bit of getting used to. The thinsulate mattresses that we use while camping provide more padding.

We are really enjoying our time at Harmony Farm and are appreciating the unique opportunity that it provides for us to see Cambodia in a way that most tourists cannot. Village life seems happy and quiet. It is amazing that in a place where genocide occurred so recently (beginning in 1975, I'm not sure exactly when it stopped) people can seem so content.

Peace and Harmony

After a few days of shopping in Bangkok we took the train to the Cambodia border where we went through the border and caught a bus on to Siem Reap. The guide book warns that the bus may try to make your journey as uncomfortable as possible in hope that when they drop you off at the guesthouse of their choice you will be tired enough to crash there for which they will receive payment. Our bus seemed to be doing strange things like taking us ten minutes away from the station where there is food,water, and a bathroom only to park and wait for a hour. When we arrived in town they took us to a parking lot five kilometers out of town and then sold Tuk-Tuk rides to everyone on the bus to take us to the center of town. A little frustrating but we made it to Siem Reap and stopped off at the Peace Cafe where we had made our initial WWOOF contact. It doesn't seem like there is much we are able to help with at the cafe they have a small garden that doesn't require much work. Tomorrow we will head out to harmony farm to help in the building of mud brick houses.

Laos and Ko Samui

Laos was lovely. I recommend that you take a trip there sometime. The weather was nice. The food was amazing. Laos is a former French colony, and Luang Prabang is a quaint mix of French and Lao food and architecture. Luang Prabang was a very easy city to visit. It is a little like Banff: nice restaurants, quaint shops, small town. The whole town is easily walkable. The traffic is very quiet, and most people get around on bicycles. There is a very nice night market in Luang Prabang.

From Luang Prabang we went to Vang Vieng. In your someday trip to Laos I recommend that you skip Vang Vieng. This is the city that people head to if they want to do drugs in Laos. A lot of the tourists here looked to be in pretty bad shape. We did not stay long.

The next place we stopped was Vientiane - the capital city. I really like Vientiane. It was easy to get around as a tourist, but it was still a very Asian city. There was a lot of traditional clothing and activities. This city is not just set up as a tourist town, but it happily welcomes tourists to come to visit. Vientiane has a replica Arc de Triumph rising up unexpectedly in the middle of a major street not far from the traditional morning market and noodle stalls.

We took a sleeper bus from Vientaine to Pakse in the south. This bus was amazing! We got a fairly comfortable bed to share. They provided dinner, bottled water, candies, and face wipes to freshen up in the morning. Even with a very nice bus it is hard to get a decent night's sleep in a moving bus. When we arrived in Pakse we had a look around and decided that there was not much of interest here and we carried on to our final destination: Don Khon. The trip included a short trip on the side car of a motorbike. David took some pictures of us going down the street on this contraption. I made him stop taking pictures when I noticed how distracted the driver was becoming. We have a nice picture that we will have to post sometime where the only person with a nice posed smile is the driver. He is totally not looking at the road. We arrived at the bus stop to find that it is not, in fact, a bus that goes to the four thousand islands bus a songtao. Three hours in a songtao is not overly comfortable, especially not after spending the whole night on a bus. After this there was a short ride in a longboat before we would arrive on Don Khon and at a guesthouse with what seemed like the most comfortable bed in the world. We really enjoyed Don Khon. There is nothing to do there. There are no tourist sights that you feel obliged to rush around and see. The only thing to do is relax. We went for walks and bike rides and sat around reading our books. I finally finished reading Homer's Iliad. It is a very boring book. I don't even like war stories, so I really don't know why I decided to read it.

We did a bus riding marathon to get from Don Khon to Ko Samui in southern Thailand where we met with Debbi and Dave (and Otis) for their Chinese New Year holiday. The overnight bus on this trip was not at all like the other. The seats were so close together that our knees pressed into the back of the seats in front of us. Everyone had to recline at the same time. It was a very uncomfortable ride. Ko Samui has been very nice. The weather is hot and the ocean is a shade of turquoise that I thought only existed on postcards. I have never before been to the ocean in a place where it is actually warm enough to get into. The push and pull is very strange.

We are wrapping up our time here in Ko Sumui relaxed and sunburned. Apparently some people can burn through the shade of a beach umbrella and three applications of SPF 60 sunblock. Ow. It has been really nice to spend time with friends. We have not had the chance to spend time with friends (except on Skype) for quite a while. Tomorrow we plan to head for Bangkok where we will spend a few days before we head for Cambodia.