driver took us on the grand circuit tour and we saw many temples. it's hard to remember the differences between each one. they're hard to describe. you just have to go there and see for yourself or look at pictures online :o) our cambodia pictures should be up within in a few months lol
lunch was chicken noodle soup cambodian style.
it was extremely hot and humid as usual so we were spent by 3pm again, went back to the hotel, interneted, showered, and went to dinner.
we got a bbq burger at the irish pub and it was yummy! we played a little pool and hung out upstairs and it was nice :o)
Day 52
breakfast as joe to go.
driver took us to see the official angkor wat and angkor tham. they are the two main temples people come to see because they're really huge. angkor tham is actually a temple city. there are many different temples enclosed within a wall.
seeing angkor wat felt like coming full circle. the first time i ever heard of angkor wat was when jens and i first started dating and we went to an archaeological lecture at the dma so i could get extra credit for my anthropology class. it was really interesting and it felt great to actually get to see angkor wat in person!
we looked at all of the amazing bas reliefs around the outer wall first and were able to read descriptions of all of them since we bought a book about angkor wat from a land-mine victim that morning.
we eventually made it to the center where the three giant towers are and we were about to go up when the workers told me i couldn't BECAUSE MY KNEES WERE SHOWING! i was livid! i had never ever heard or read that you needed to cover your knees to go to the top of angkor wat. they didn't even provide anything for me to wear nor were they even selling anything to wear which i would think cambodians of all people would see the opportunity there! if i wanted to go to the top i'd have to walk about 1km out of the temple and hope that someone out there was selling a skirt! i was hot and tired and too upset to even argue or walk all the way out and back so i just said fine and went and cried in a corner while jens went up and got pictures. i know that probably sounds really lame but i just couldn't believe we had come all that way and spent all that money and i still couldn't go up in the main site i came to see because my stupid knees were showing! it was ridiculous! it's not as if this old stone building would have exploded at the presence of my exposed knees! i had already walked dang-near all over the thing anyway! lol
even if i concede to their insane notions they should have at least TOLD me ahead of time or AT LEAST provided something for me to buy to wear up in the thing! there was nothing i could do!
you're probably wondering- why didn't you just go back and buy a skirt if you wanted to go up in it that badly? well truth be told i knew going to the top wouldn't actually be that spectacular. it most likely would have been exactly the same as going up in any of the other temples we visited in ayuthaya and angkor. jens went up and took pics and said as much and that it wreaked of pigeon poo lol so it wasn't so much that i couldn't go up to the top of angkor. it was just the fact that they all of the sudden said no you can't cuz your knees are showing- with no warning whatsoever! i was just annoyed and pissed off because it was such a stupid thing.
they think the gods live in angkor and the other temples. my question is- why would the gods be offended by my knees? the cambodians think the gods are the ones that gave me knees in the first place! so what's so horrible about them that they can't be exposed in the house of the gods? lol also- how come i can expose my knees all i want in every other part of angkor? does a specific god live up in the towers of angkor wat that has a personal disgust of knees???? it's just so arbitrary! i would think it was just a ploy to get people to buy long skirts or pants but they weren't even selling any! it doesn't make any sense!
on our way out i saw two women wearing sleeveless shirts (another no-no) and shorts above the knee so i let them know they would not be able to go to the top of angkor without covering up. they were shocked! one woman said that she had specifically asked a worker at her hotel what she should wear and they said- just bring a scarf to wrap around your shoulders when you go up. wearing shorts is fine!!!!
when we got back to our driver i told our driver what happened and he said- oh i'm so sorry. i didn't know that.
also- a girl was trying very hard to sell us water and i told her she should sell skirts. she asked why and i told her and she was surprised too!
so apparently cambodians don't even know about this. i have no idea why they're doing it.
moving on....
lunch- fried rice with chicken and ginger
ankor tham - it was huge! our favorite part was bayon because it has huge faces carved into the stone towers. i liked it even more than angkor wat so that made up for not being able to go in the angkor wat towers. we also saw the leper king terrace and the elephant terrace. they were basically tall, long walls with elephants, people, etc. carved into them. you could go up stairs to the top of the wall and walk along it. it was cool!
we bought a temple "rubbing" from someone at some point. he supposedly took rice paper to angkor wat and rubbed an image of a woman carving into the paper and then painted it. i've seen them all over. i dunno if they actually do it at the temple or it they do it on a pre-made mold. either way it was cool and only $5. more art for our house!
we stayed at the park til 5pm when it closes and then went back to the hotel for showers, packing and dinner. we ate at a bbq place and got skewers of chicken, squid and veggies. it was good!
that was our last night! last night in cambodia, last night in s.e. asia, and last night of vacation as a whole!
Day 53 flew to kuala lumpur, malaysia and spent the whole day in the airport.
"brunch" was indian roti, masala thosai, curry and teh tarik and it was soooooo good! i was happy we got to eat that kinda food one more time before leaving. you won't believe how cheap it was- all of that for less than ONE DOLLAR! amazing!
we found a coffee shop to read in and we were surrounded by several couples consisting of a man wearing regular, casual clothes and a woman wearing full-body black burkahs! you could only see their eyes! that's when i remembered we were in a muslim country! lol it's so weird to see that and i think it's so misogynistic! the men are just saying- "she's mine", no one else gets to see her body but me. what they don't get is that just makes us stare at their women even more! lol meanwhile i'm sitting there in sleeveless dress and skin-tight leggings lol- WITH MY HAIR EXPOSED! i hope my hair didn't send out too many sex rays to those muslim men!
(many muslims actually believe women's hair emits "sex rays". here's a quote from here: http://www.michaeltotten.com/2010/01/quote-of-the-day-8.php"In 1981, Abol-Hassan Banisadr, the first president of the Islamic Republic, announced that scientific research had shown that women's hair emits rays that drive men insane with lust. To protect the public, the new regime passed legislation in 1982 making the new form of hijab mandatory for all females above six years of age, regardless of religious faith.") insaaaane!
anyway, i read a magazine there called expatriate malaysia and it was really interesting to see malaysia from the expatriate's point of view. there was an article a woman has written about an insulting commercial that shows in malaysia. this guy is talking about a new kind of printer and he explains everything about it and then he says- "it's so easy, even my wife uses it!" as if she's some kind of moron lol can you believe commercials like that still exist? there were also "love letters to malaysia" that people wrote in about how much they love malaysia and why. they made malaysia sound great and i thought...i wonder what expats would write about korea.... :o/
lunch- sandwiches
hung out more, roamed around, they have a freaking enclosed rainforest in the middle of the terminal. it's pretty awesome! lol we looked around a bookstore and jens got a book he'd been wanting (ever the book lover!) i got a magazine and we hung out more until it was finally time to go to our gate (around 10pm).
on the way we thought hey! we need to spend the rest of our malaysian money! (it wasn't that much). so we bought some cigars and some port! woohoo!
then it was on to the plane. lifted off late because some korean people checked their baggage but never got on the plane for some reason...so they had to go through all the bags and take theirs out before we could leave.
the flight was extremely uncomfortable since we were flying overnight and planes are impossible to sleep comfortably on.
Day 54 we arrived at 7am -ish. then it was a race to the bus, the bus to the train station and then up to the ticket counter. we arrived 5 mins. too late to get the train we wanted :o( so we had to hang out in the cold, uncomfortable train station for two hours until we could leave. ice skating was on and i realized that everyone's routines look exactly the same! there's only so much you can do on skates.
we finally got on the train, tried to sleep a little and arrived in mokpo around 2pm. we got a taxi to our apt. and were happily reunited with our puppiiiies! they were so excited! as were we :o)
we had to spend about 3 hours getting our house clean and back in order. we had a few different people stay at our house while we were gone and let's just say they did not leave it the way they found it!
jens made homemade wheat bread and we ate that and black eyed peas we had frozen after new year's day!
aaaaahhhh it was good to be home!
and it wasn't actually as cold as we thought it would be. predictably it had warmed up a bit in the two months we were gone :o) still too cold for my tastes though! it's been overcast and drizzly :oP --------------------------------
since getting back we've started work and we just finished our first week! jens has a new vice principal and co-teacher. he says they're ok. his co-t is older and expects more out of him than the last one and her two young kids hang out in their classroom after school and annoy him while he's trying to write his 3rd novel.
i on the otherhand am ABSOLUTELY COMPLETELY UNBELIEVEABLY THRIIIIIILLLLLEEEDDD! that i have a new co-teacher and my bat-crap insane one from last year has moved on to another school :oD oh happy day! my new co-t is the man who has shared an office with me for several months and he barely talks to me. i love it! :o)
i have 4 other co-ts that will also be helping me in my classes. two men i already knew, only one of which i've worked with before, and two new women. i was very pleased when one of the women offered to go to lunch with me and then have coffee with me after lunch and we talked for about 3 hours. she's really nice and i'm really happy i have her as a co-t because 3 of my co-t friends from last year have moved to other schools and the only other one i am friends with is a 3rd grade homeroom teacher now so i don't see her much. so i'm glad i like this new lady. i'll probably like the other new lady too but haven't talked to her yet. i already know i don't like one of the men much but i do like the other one. he's nice and helpful.
i've just had a few classes so far. all the 1st graders (10th graders) are new and therefore do not speak at all. it makes for extremely awkward and uncomfortable classes and i'd almost rather them talk over me lol 2nd graders are the 1st graders from last year and i'm sure will be just as annoying as they were before lol
i got my permanent schedule today and it looks pretty good! i only have 3 classes a day, all before lunch except one day when i have a class during last period. that sucks because it means i'll miss my bus that day but the rest of the schedule is great so oh well.
i've got all my lesson ideas decided for the rest of my stay here but i don't have all the lessons planned out :oP ...because i hate planning lessons lol so hopefully i can get around to that soon...lol
this weekend there's a back to school party at moe's bar and that's pretty much our plans so far.
you may be wondering when i'm going to finish updating about our trip lol once we got back to korea i just totally relaxed and didn't feel like doing anything. now i'm at work and i could update but i don't have my notes. i wrote a paper journal throughout too so that i wouldn't forget if i didn't write it on here. so i'll have to sit down at home and look at that while i write. hopefully i'll get around to it soon!
i'm gonna make this quick cuz i'm hot and tired and i need a shower lol
Day 49 - flew to cambodia
it was a chinese propeller plane and the most turbulent flight i've ever been on. kinda scary but not too bad lol we landed safely obviously. we had a stop in one town to drop people off and then we flew to siem reap which was interesting. i'd never had a stopover like that before.
we're staying at popular guesthouse. we like it.
cambodia is REALLY hot! quite a shock after the cool weather of luang prabang in laos!
another shock in cambodia are all the beggars. they're everywhere, of all ages and they don't let up til you buy something or give them money. we now have a book, a scarf and 12 bracelets we weren't planning on buying. it was all really cheap though so that's ok. i certainly don't mind helping the people out but they're just so in your face. it makes it hard to think straight. it's overwhelming. especially when it's 2-3 little bitty kids 4-6 years old and they're reaching up with their wares and saying ÿou buy this lady, lady, one dollaaarrr, no buy from me ladyyy, 5 for one dollaarrr"and you're like ah what do i do!? so i just bought something from each kid.
the temples are awesome though! the first time i heard of angkor wat was in the dallas museum of art. they were having an archaeological presentation and i could get extra credit for my anthropology class by going. i went with jens and we drank wine and it was all very sophisticated lol so to finally see the place makes me feel like i've come full circle!
angkor wat is actually just one of the many, many temple ruins that are in a huge area near siem reap. yesterday we saw one location before the park closed at 5pm.
we had cambodia for dinner. something called amok which is basically a curry with lots of scrambled egg in it and it's not as soupy. pretty good!
after dinner jens and i got full body massages for only $7 each!
then we got kaffir lime and passionfruit gelato, then some samosas (cuz we got hungry again) and then went back to the hotel for shower and sleep.
Day 50 - tons o' temples!
we had a western style breakfast at blue pumpkin and then our tuk-tuk driver picked us up and took us along the "grand circuit" to see a bunch of temples. we probably went 15km outside of siem reap by the end of the day. we saw 4-5 different temples and each one was slightly different. we saw the huge trees growing on top of temples with their roots "melting"down over the stones into the ground. we saw huge faces carved into stone gates. we saw big lions and elephants carved out of stone. and we also saw live cows running about, water buffalo grazing, chickens and roosters pecking, dogs lolling about and loooots of people selling stuff.
we had chicken and veg. noodle soup for lunch and that was good.
by about 3pm we were totally melting and exhausted so we saw one more temple and went back to the hotel.
on the ride home a spanish guy on a bike rode up and hung on to our tuk-tuk to get a ride into town. he said he had family in texas! imagine that!
now we've just got one more official day of vacation before we start heading back. we'll see angkor wat and the huge angkor tham tomorrow. then the day after we'll fly from cambodia to kl, malaysia. our flight to korea doesn't leave til 10 hours later so we'll have plenty of time to get to know the kuala lumpur airport. we fly back to korea at 12am! arrive at about 6am and then we'll take a bus to the train station. from there we'll train to mokpo. then it's just one more form of transportation between us and HOME! a taxi to line apartuh! where our little bitty wuffle pups will be waiting! can't wait to see them!!!!! sigh...we'll have two months with them in korea but then we'll be leaving them for another 2 months more or less when we go on our road trip in the states. i dunno if i can do it! :o( at least they'll be in good hands with my mom. she loves dogs as much as we do! :o)
i can't believe our looooong vacation is finally coming to an end! it'll be so weird to go back to korea. first of all it'll be much much colder and we'll only have about 2-3 days til we have to go back to work and start teaching again! blah! i have and idea of what i'm gonna teach but i just don't wanna do it lol i wanna go back to texas like asap. but oh well, we've got so much stuff we wanna do and have to do before we leave i'm sure the time will fly. i'm ready for some galbi!!! lol
anyway i may not update again til the airport day after tomorrow. dunno what we'll end up doing tomorrow. until next time! bye!
i'm reading a book called ant egg soup by natacha du pont de bie. she's a british woman who calls herself a food tourist, which i could call myself! sometimes i decide where to go and where to stay just based on the food! she heard there was only one book written in english about laotian food so she set out to write the second. she traveled all over laos meeting native people all along the way and having them show her how to make laotian food. i love the book so far! it's great to read a book about a country while you're traveling around it! gives you more info and more perspective.
anyway, after breakfast we got bikes and rode around town stopping at any temples we saw. there are 34 in luang prabang! i think we only saw 3 but that's ok. we've seen tons of temples in s.e. asia in general we will be seeing more lol
it was really nice to be able to slowly bike around. this town is really quiet and beautiful! i love the architecture!
we went up phousy hill and saw the temple and buddha statues there including "buddha's footprint", obviously fake seeing as how my whole body could fit into it lol the view from the top of the hill was great though! you could see the whole town and both rivers that run through it- the mekong and the nam son (i think...we've never been able to confirm the name of the other river).
we rode around the town some more admiring the pretty little cafes, monks in bright orange robes and kids playing in the streets.
in the afternoon we got a late light lunch of iced bale fruit tea and a tuna potato salad that was really good at l'etranger - a book lending/selling tea room/cafe. what i loved about it most were all the national geographics you could look at for free upstairs while lounging on big cushions on the floor. i looked at one from 1973 and enjoyed the olds ads as much as the articles. i read one article about centanarians and how they live as long as they do. it sounds like the key to longevity is hard physical labor everyday of your life, a low calorie diet and a good bit of alcohol lol i need to work on the first one lol
we biked some more until dusk and then turned out bikes in.
we decided to go to dinner at hive bar because they have a hilltribe clothing fashion show every night. we ordered a house salad and a tomato pesto pizza, the fashion show began and it started to rain...the problem was all the tables and the stage were outside! no one wanted to risk sitting in a downpour so after it had been sprinkling for 5 mins. everyone ran to get tables indoors and they stopped the fashion show. we got to see 4-5 different kinds of hilltribe clothing though. there are over a hundred different ethnicities who live in the hills and each has their own distinct style of clothing. it's really cool!
we ate dinner inside but it never did rain very hard. the food was good and afterwards we want back to the hotel for an early night because we were getting up early in the morning.
Day 47 - change of weather and change of plans!
we had planned to take a biking and kayaking tour to a hilltribe village and a waterfall where you can swim but the weather had drastically changed overnight! we woke up to the coldest weather we've experienced in s.e. asia and we were NOT prepared! i didn't even have pants or enclosed shoes. we immediately went to the tour office and asked if we could reschedule our tour for sunday because we saw online that it was supposed to warm and sunny that day. thankfully they switched our tour with no problem and no charge.
it was so chilly all we wanted to do was stay inside all day lol we went to joma and had a long breakfast, hot tea and read quite a while. then we went out and checked out some places to schedule a cooking class either for that evening or the next day. it took us forever to find a place and it was too expensive so we went and found another place for which we had seen flyers. it's called tamnak (3 elephants) and it's a combined restaurant, cooking school and book exchange. it seems to be owned by an ozzy woman (and maybe her husband?...she said "we" a couple times but i never saw anyone else...) she lives in the building in which the book exchange is run and she has a funny-looking medium-sized shaggy gray mut with an underbite who will apparently bite anyone who tries to pet her lol the lady had signs up everywhere warning people not to pet her. the dog didn't seem phased by jens and i and as we were leaving she even came up to me and sniffed my leg. i like to think that she could sense jens and i were good dog people :o) the ozzy lady was gregarious and funny and i really liked her.
it took us so long to find a cooking school that it was time for lunch and we had seen that joma had a really yummy looking rueben sandwich so we just gave in to our love of the place and returned for lunch lol we got the delicious rueben sandwich and a wonderfully comforting bowl of creamy tomato soup which really hit the spot on such a cold day. you're probably thinking it was like 30F or something but it might have only been 60F. it was just such a drastic change that our bodies weren't used to it at all and like i said i didn't have proper clothing. if we walked briskly down the street it wasn't too bad but i certainly didn't wanna meander around in it!
so after lunch we decided to go see the national museum which used to be the royal palace when there was a king. when the communists took over they put the king, queen and prince in a cave prison. the prince complained about the food so they said ok cook it yourself. he soon got dysentery and brain fever and died. they moved the king and queen to another cave prison and they died shortly after...of what i don't know. when laos became extremely poor the govt decided to open the palace up as a museum to bring in some money from tourists. so it's a bit weird. the author of the book i'm reading likened it to killing the pope and then opening up the vatican as a museum...i guess you could also compare it to killing the president and then opening the white house as a museum.
nonetheless the palace was pretty cool! the throne room had intricate japanese glass pictoral mosaics on all the walls which really amazed me. picture a little man on a horse made entirely of tiny pieces of colored glass - there were hundreds of these pictures on the walls. amazing! there was also the king's bedroom, queen's bedroom, dining room, a couple other rooms, buddhas (i've really seen enough of buddha and i'm sure he would be appalled at how many statues there are of him all over the world seeing as how he had no intention of people worshipping him at all!), and a room filled with gifts from other countries (given to the king during his reign). most of the gifts were amazing. china had given this intricately carved sphere made of ivory that had other spheres carved inside it! it was amazing and i have no idea how one would do that! it blew my mind! on the other hand the u.s. had only given a little crappy model of the craft they landed on the moon lol now granted they also gave a few moon pebbles but still it didn't really compare to the amazing craftmanship of the chinese ivory sphere.
we discovered the royal ballet theater is right next to the museum so we bought tickets to a traditional dance for that night. it start at 6pm so we needed to eat an early dinner. we decided to go back to l'etranger because i had seen that they had chai. unfortunately when we got there they said they were out of chai so i got hot bale fruit tea, jens got coffee and we went upstairs to read and look at more national geographic. i looked at two old ones from the 70s that had articles about texas! it was really interesting to see how they wrote back then and to see what they said about texas. they wrote about it pretty stereotypically and if that was people's main info about texas i can see why every time i meet someone from somewhere else they think texas is just a desert with cows, cowboys and hicks lol the thing that shocked me the most was that they used both the terms "wetback" and "coolies" as if that was totally ok lol we've come a long way since then!
after hanging out a while we ordered pappadam with 3 dips (smokey eggplant dip, salsa and pesto) and that tuna potato salad again that was so good.
then we went to the dance show. they performed a story from the ramayana and the dance was similar to ones i had seen in bali. pretty cool but a bit slow going. i was glad i saw it but i was also glad it was only an hour lol
it was still early and jens had really been craving apple pie so we went back to joma for the 3rd time that day because we knew they had it. unfortunately they had run out lol (not our lucky day!) so we got cheesecake with mango and a brownie.
Day 48 - cooking class!
we had a light breakfast of raisin bread, fruit and tea and then we headed over to tamnak cooking school. there were about 9 of us students all together.
first we took a tuk-tuk to the market and one of our teachers showed us around. it was great! i've always loved asian markets but i had never had someone guide me through one and tell me what things were! i loved it! we saw fish in buckets, pig feet, pig snouts, blood jello, buffalo meat, buffalo skin, tons of herbs, veggies and fruit, bamboo, cornstarch snacks covered in palm sugar, and lots of non-food items like clothes, toiletries, etc. but we of course focuses on the food! jens and i weren't too phased by anything after living in korea so it was fun to see some of the other students freaking out about the gross things lol
after that we went back to the school for morning tea and some of that cornstarch/palm sugar snack. then we got to learnin'!
there were two teachers and they took turns teaching us how to make various dishes. first they would demonstrate the dishes and then we would go to our stations and make the dishes ourselves following the cookbook (which we got to keep). it was so much fun!!!!! jens and i wished we had been doing cooking classes in every country! not only because it was fun but simply because we like to cook and we were tired of eating out all the time. jens said he was surprised at how great he felt as soon as he started cooking lol there's just something about making your own food that's really satisfying.
first we made a luang prabang salad which was really easy. just lettuce, cucumber, tomato, boiled egg, peanuts and laos mayonaisse which we made from scratch- it was just oil, vinegar, hard boiled egg yolk, salt, pepper and sugar. very yummy! then we made a fried noodle dish with chicken, veggies and herbs. it was delicious! after we made our food we went outside on the porch and all ate together at a big table.
then we went back in to learn how to make 6 other dishes. this time we could choose which ones we wanted to make ourselves. the first half of the afternoon we were shown how to make laap (the national dish), a stir fried vermicelli noodle dish with veggies and pork and a pork and egg stew. then we could choose two to make. we chose the first two. the laap was made with chicken and was also super easy! all you had to do was cook the chicken and mix it with a bunch of garlic, onion and herbs! sooo fresh tasting and so good! next we made the noodle dish and that was a bit more work but really yummy and had a totally different taste. it was made with "ear mushrooms" which gave it a woody peanutty flavor.
then we were shown how to make 3 other things - a stir-fried eggplant and pork dish, an eggplant and chicken red curry and a red chili paste. we could choose one of the first two dishes to make but they didn't let us make the chili paste because we didn't need that much of it. in the demonstration they made enough for everyone. laotian people use it as a condiment like korean people do. so jens and i decided to make the eggplant curry (and we left out the chicken because we already had meat in every other dish that day lol ). it was a little more difficult to get right. it tasted fine we just didn't have much liquid left in it at the end and i'm not sure why. turns out everyone else chose to cook that same dish and none of them had enough liquid at the end either lol dunno if we were supposed to turn the heat down halfway through or what but like i said, it still tasted good. if i made it again though i'd use less red curry paste as it was too spicy for me.
after making our 3 dishes of the afternoon we all sat down to way too much food for such an early dinner lol we ate dinner at 4:30! they have an evening class that starts at 5pm. but the food was really really good! i liked all the dishes equally for different reasons and i'll definitely try to make them when i go back to the states!
we had a lot of food left over so a couple of us boxed ours up to give to people..we weren't sure who but we didn't wanna just throw it all out. jens and i ended up giving ours to the workers at our guesthouse and they said it was good! lol dunno if they were lying but i'll go with it!
we watched the sunset over the river and then we went for dessert at a nearby cafe. got chai, coffee and a cookie, read and then came back here to get on the internet.
tomorrow is our last day and we're doing our biking kayaking tour! hope it's warm!
then we'll be on our last leg of our trip- angkor wat, cambodia!!!!! wooooooo!
so after our late lunch i think we just chilled in the hotel til dinner...then we had dinner at this japanese place because jens had a craving for ramen lol i got veggie and shrimp tempura with rice and it was really good!
day 42 - last day in vientiane, chinese lunar new year, valentine's day!
we had a short bout of digestive bacteria so jens just went out and got some food to go at le banneton and brought it back to the hotel for us to eat in bed. after taking some medicine and eating we felt a bit better. i must say i'm surprised how little i've gotten sick. only twice and the first time wasn't bad at all and the second time wasn't as bad as i've had before. so that's nice! :o) maybe my stomach is finally getting used to s.e. asian bacteria! lol
we went out after breakfast and hoped to see some kind of chinese new year celebration but we saw none whatsoever! i was so bummed! i've lived in asia over 3 years and have NEVER seen a chinese new year celebration! how lame is that? the first two years i happened to be in texas at that time and then this year when i'm actually in asia for it i happen to go to like the only asian country that doesn't celebrate it! i dunno why they don't! it's the buddhist calendar new year and buddhism is huge in laos! so frustrating!
so we just roamed around, had lunch at joma, read, interneted and then went to see a temple. it was pretty cool! older than other temples we've seen.
we roamed some more, hung out at the big fountain in the square and reminisced about our relationship since it was valentine's day :o) <3>
so after updating the journal and interneting it was time for lunch! so we went to joma and got eggplant spinach lasagna, greek salad and a mint lime freeze. it was all wonderful!
then we looked for a scooter but they were all manuals so we gave up on that idea :o/
we got a tuk-tuk driver to take us to two sites. first we went to "that luang", a huge golden stupa with lots of other golden stupas around it. it was pretty impressive! then we looked at the temples buildings near it. the main one was under construction so we couldn't go inside but we got a good look of the outside. then we saw this huge open air gathering hall that was covered in colorful paintings- it was awesome!
after that we tuk-tuked over to patuxay- a replica of l'arc de triomphe in france, except loas-ified lol it has buddhist figures on it and shops insides selling the usual souvenirs you find in laos (silk scarves, figurines, purses, weird pipes, jewelry, etc.) we went to the top to see the view. there's one nice boulevard leading out from it to the presidential palace. on the opposite side there's a nice park and fountain that wasn't flowing at the time. overall pretty cool but when i heard the story of it i was kind of depressed lol turns out the u.s. gave laos money in 1960something to build a new airport and instead of doing that they built patuxay...useful! laotians call it the world's tallest runway lol meanwhile, laos doesn't release the safety information of it's airline...which worries me. we're flying with them to cambodia!!
after seeing those sites we went back to joma to eat amazing mulberry pie and apple crumble! yum!
i think we just hung out in the hotel after that til dinner which was at a loatian place. we got another set meal because we still weren't that familiar with loatian food. it was fresh veggie spring rolls, the famous green papaya spicy salad, a sour fish soup (lemongrass makes it sour), and ground chicken with tons of herbs (which i think is called laap). it was all really fresh tasting and delicious! after having those two set meals i think what quantifies laotian food is spicy salads, sour soups and herbed meats.
i bought this book called ant egg soup, travels of a food tourist in laos. i'm currently reading the satanic verses by salman rushdie but since we're in laos now i wanted to read a bit of the laos book, which i did last night and i really like it so far. before the book was written there was only ONE book written about laotian food in english! when the author of ant egg soup found that out she knew she had to go to laos and write about its food because she loves traveling and trying new foods (just like me! ;o) anyway, she said laap is the national dish of laos and they do, in fact, love their herbs and spicy salads. i haven't read much but i'm eager to read more.
aaaaaaaanyway
Day 41 - randomness
breakfast at joma - i got a mulberry scone (pretty good) and plain yogurt (weirdest yogurt i've ever had and it wasn't that good :oP) and then i shared a fruit bowl and cinnamon roll with jens. the cinnamon roll was really good and i wanna eat another one tomorrow!
after breakfast we headed to the post office to send a bunch of stuff to the texas that we bought yesterday. we found a store that sold laos honey so we bought 3 jars of it! that stuff is amazing! we also got some coffee, green tea, 5 paintings (bought from the side of the road really cheap!) and some handmade house shoes that are really cute!
i just want to take a moment to announce that laotian postal workers are THE BEST packers in all of s.e. asia! (or at least the s.e. asian countries that i have been to and from which i have sent packages lol) every other time i've sent something from s.e. asia they've just thrown the stuff in a box with no padding whatsoever and something has always gotten broken. laotion postal workers though- omg! they're so thorough! they spent like 30 mins,. meticulously wrapping and taping each item and fitting them perfectly into the box with lots of air puffy things. awesome! thank you guys!!!
unfortunately the whole thing cost $60 to send! but we sure as heck weren't telling them nevermind lol after all that packing!!! plus it's either send it now or send it from korea later. and it's stuff we really wanted and will enjoy and plus it was all super cheap! so it's worth it!
jens went to an atm to get more money and i waited in the post office...FOR AN HOUR! i got SO worried! i thought for sure he had gotten hit by a scooter or a car or bus or something and had been air-flighted to bangkok or something! i didn't know what to do. i had no money or anything on me. he had taken the entire bag and all i could do was sit there and wait in the post office lol FINALLY he returned (5 mins. after the post office had closed for the day) and said he had to try 8 different atms before one would work lol
we finally paid and got the heck outta there. it was lunch time but jens wasn't hungry enough yet and i wasn't THAT hungry so i got a fruit shake to tide me over til jens was hungry. i got a mango, papaya, sapadilla shake. what's a sapadilla you ask? well here you go: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapadilla
then we went to the national museum where we learned a lot about the tumultuous history of laos, including that fact that it is the most bombed country in the world!!! good going u.s.a.! >:o(
then we went to a late lunch at le bannetone and got a salad and a quiche. it was weird but good.
this internet place is closed so i have to go! until next time!
