Jen and Ted in the SEA

We are in the Motherland as Ted calls it! We arrived in Rangoon on Tuesday and were overwhelmed with the welcomes and generosity!

Our day books are very full with social engagements and therefore we haven't had much time to email! Let me give the run down!

First of all, Ted and I love the beautiful parks and the city of Rangoon...it was great to get out of the Backpacker world of Bangkok! Yangon (Rangoon) has a lot of the old British architecture and the parks are immaculately maintained. As is the Shwe Dagon Pagoda (the most famous Rangoon landmark)...We are just a short walk to the Pagoda!

The first day, Diana and Megan (Ted's second cousins) picked us up from the airport and helped us with some organizational things (ie., you can't change money at a bank , you must go to a Money Changer and they only deal in currency as high as 1000 kyats = $1 US....It was very interesting!). They took us on a brief tour and out for lunch! They are wonderful ladies and they were so excited to see Ted and meet more family! Diana works as a Travel Agent and Megan is a lawyer.

The next day we went to their house for lunch and met their older brother Robin. They spent the entire morning making us some of the best food ever! (Shrimp curry, mutton curry, pennywort salad and many others... before serving great banana pudding and congyabaung - a great glutinous rice dish). We had a great time sharing pictures and stories! The meal was typical Burmese (I think we were there for 4 hours!). That evening we went out with our friend, Kya Kya's sister and husband (Melody and Than Tun) and had more wonderful food!!

The following day was tonnes of fun as Diana took us on a tour of the Shwe Dagon Pagoda. We made offerings to the Buddha (there is a Buddha that you pray to for the day of the week you were born). We also laid gold leaf on a Buddha. We were really excited to go to the Astrologer that Diana has visited. She was amazingly accurate and gave Ted and me wonderful fortunes. Apparently, we are a very lucky couple (because we were born on Wednesday (Jen) and Monday (Ted)). She told us many interesting things! She also gave us new Burmese names that mean that we will grow and become famous!

That afternoon we located an old school friend of Ted's dad, Don. Percy and Don grew up together in Maymyo (Pyin Oo Lwin). We met him and he treated us to an afternoon of Kachin beer, great Dagon beer and many funny stories. We spent several hours becoming slightly tipsy in his living room! He and his son, Kim took us for lunch and by the end of the day we were exhausted!!

Friday, The full moon holiday, was low key as Ted and I went to a lake and had a picnic! We had another great walk and spent the evening with Melody, Than Tun and Daw Kyi Kyi. We had an amazing meal of many of our favourite foods!

We are so lucky to be in Burma. It does feel like you step back in time. Monks line the streets, everyone wears longyi and people first stare at us and then smile! We are definitely off the beaten track. We are really excited to go back to Diana and Melody's tomorrow for Mo Hinga (one of my favourite meals).

Signing off for now....Aye Chan Myint (Jen) and Hein Tet Zaw (Ted)!

After settling back in Bangkok and finding a fabulous new guest house (Roof View Place). I got sick again with Traveller's Diahhrea. We decided to hang out in Bangkok until Wed. morning (March 12). We took the train to Kanchanaburi and found a great little guest house on the Kwai River. Smells and food was still causing my stomach to revolt so we played it easy the first day....heading down to the Bridge over River Kwai and having a light supper.

The next day we decided that the best way to beat the heat is to ride bikes and find museums that were cool. We were both really interested in the Burma-Thai Bridge that the POWs built during WWII so we headed to that museum first. The museum was impressive and we really began to understand how atrocious the situation was. The POWs were building a railway with an impossible schedule, in impossible terrain with horrible conditions. In fact, the workers in the most dire circumstances were the Burmese, Malay and Thai workers who were promised contracts and improved working conditions. The cemetary adjacent to the museum was very well kept and many POWs from Britain, Australia and the Netherlands were buried there.

We took our pedal bikes (they don't move very fast but they are sure better than walking) across the river into the country side to visit the Chong Kai Cemetary. We had our PB and banana sandwiches (we finally found wholewheat bread!) and picnic along the river. We were finally entertained by a group of Asian tourists as they cruised by on a Karaoke Barge! We took that as a cue to get going.

We finished the day at the JEATH War Museum. An interesting collection that Monks put together. The museum covered everything from prehistoric Thailand to Miss. Thailand costumes! We felt like that was full day!

The next day we spent on a tour. We are somewhat opposed to tours but decided that it may be the best way to see several things out of town in a short period of time. The other travellers were Kiwis living in Australia and were great to hang out with. We stopped at Erawan Lake National Park. We had until 11:30 to see the falls and swim. The hike to the falls involved 7 different levels ending at 2200m high. We kept hiking as the park wasn't very busy and we thought we could find a pool that was empty (our philosophy is to get away from Tourists - even though we recognize we may actually be one of them!). We ended up swimming at a few levels. The pools are filled with fish and they are definitely hungry as little and big fish (piranha - as Ted, the fisherman, believes them to be) started biting at our bodies. Some of the fish were at least 12 inches long! We decided there were just love bites and tried to igore them. We knew we were tough and couldn't be scared off by fish.

We felt the pressure to get going so we descended and half way home we were thrilled to see monkeys on the path! We took a few pictures and the whole family came out to play on the handrail. We knew that the monkeys were proned to steal things but we didn't have any food so we made an attempt to get past them. Ted was first. He looked the monkeys in the eye, and all of the sudden he had one on his arm and two nipping at his ankles! I freaked out (as did the Kiwis behind us) and ran up as two monkeys were biting at my ankles! We narrowly escaped them and survived intact! It was a close call but once again defended ourselves against these vicious beasts!

We spent the night hanging out with the Kiwi couple, Jamie and Hannah.

We were really excited to head out the next day as we rented a motor bike and packed another picnic and headed back to Erawan Lake. We really wanted to hang out without time restraints. Ted has become a very proficient driver! We had a blast that day...no monkey encounters but the fish still thought we were yummy. We had an awesome picnic and decided to visit an Elephant Refuge Park on the way home. We did meet some Elephants but disappeared before the big Bus Tour arrived.

We really enjoyed our trip out to Kanchanaburi! We also found out that our Burma Visas arrived in Bangkok so we headed home the next day (Sunday March 16th) to pick them up and enjoy St. Patty's day in Bangkok at the carnival (Khao San Road)!

Well we made it out of Vietnam in one piece last night. At one point it became a bit questionable. A good rain started in the afternoon then quit for a few hours. During this reprieve, we grabbed a cab to this great outdoor restaurant for rice panckes and rice rolls with shrimp and bean sprouts. Both were excellent. As we got up to leave it started raining lightly and how fitting was that, as if Vietnam didn't want us to forgot that it rains (after spending many biking days thoroughly soaked) it started to pour, and I mean POUR!!! Streets and intersections were over knee deep in places and our taxi was stuck in traffic enroute to the aiport. A few other vehicles were stalled and being pushe out of the way and I could hear the sound of running water sloshing against the underside of the car. And then our driver saw and opening and decided to go for it! He stepped on it and luckily made it through without stalling but then more water ahead slowed our progress again.

Finally, without much further delay we got to the airport and boarded our lovely 747 back to Thailand. It was also nice to be on Air France as we finally felt able to understand a the flight staff's language completely rather than just the usual words we can pick out like "two", "chicken", "please", "excuse me", "thank you".

With one last adventure, were out and we are stuck with the memory that it rains in Vietnam.

We are far from the sandy beaches of Phu Quoc! We headed back into Saigon yesterday morning and were on the road for 12 hours. We took a shuttle to the bus stop in Dong Doung (Phu Quoc) to board a bus to the the ferry terminal to get on a ferry (the SuperDong - no kidding!) to get a motorcycle taxi to a bus in a back alley to take a 6 hour ride to the bus station in Saigon to catch another taxi to our Guest House! Yeah, that is what we thought!

We were so proud of ourselves for finding a way to get back to Saigon in one day by buying two tickets from this Travel Agent on the island. We were less impressesd when we got off the ferry. We were told that we would have transportation to the bus. However, when we got off the ferry we met a couple from Sweden who also had the same tickets we did. Apparently, the "private" bus company pays motorcycle taxi guys to transport us to a back alley! We didn't even have time to think and collect our thoughts before we were manhandled into a mini-bus - into the back seat where four of us sat (with our feet on top of our backpacks) with limited air conditioning and Vietnamese music for 6 hours! The driver thankfully turned off the music when we asked as the speakers were next to our ears! I'm not sure how familiar you are with Vietnamese music but it is best appreciated when the volume is low and in small doses! Needless to say, it is always benefical to see what you are buying before you pay!

We actually did have a nice end to our Phu Quoc trip - we went Scuba diving on Thursday. We did two good dives - the visability was limited but we did see some jelly fish and an eel and some other lovely fish! We celebrated with a hot pot that night at our funny little resort!

Today is a new day and Ted and I are ready to get back to Thailand! We have had a blast in Vietnam but the amount of motorcycles is beyond me! Today we went and had fresh bread (and our first bagel) at a nice little coffee shop with a mango shake and Vietnmese drip coffee. We headed to search out a massage school. The massage therapists are all blind! It was fun! The sweet girl that did my massage was only 17 years old! We are going to search out one more good restaurant before heading to the airport!

Tam Biet!

After our journey on the bikes, we are relaxing at Whale Island resort near Nha Trang. It is a well-deserved quiet rest stop for a day and half after all the honking and swerving that takes place on Hwy 1. It is a peaceful paradise but quite cool and rained up until the time we checked in. It was very windy but enjoyed dry clothes and not having to get on a bike again the next morning, etc.

We tried to go in the ocean but the wind was very strong and cool. We went for a several km long walk on a very rugged trail around the island. It took us to a very beautiful lookout, a small local fishermen hammock rest stop and someone's front yard complete with puppies barking and chasing at our heels! Very diverse terrain. There was also lots of beutiful butterflies along the route too.

That night, after supper, we finally got Jen playing pool! We drank a few beers and I played our guides till they went to bed then Jen and I played 2 games! And she said she hates pool.

The next day, we boarded the boat at 10 am to head into Nha Trang to catch an afternoon flight to Saigon. On the bus ride to Nha Trang, we drove over some of the road we biked and the saddle sores ached just remembering the original journey. After a brief lunch in Nha Trang, we took the 45 min ride outside of town to the Nha Trang Airport which is located at the old Air Force Base used by the US in the Vietnam war. Very small airport but big huge runway and field area. Our flight to Saigon was very full and we were boarding a twin engined turbo-prop plane when we noticed a few mechanics staring at the large cargo bay door at the front of the plane. It looked like they were trying to close it and were examining the latch. We also noticed that a few tires looked very low and we joked about lending them our bike pump. It was at this time we all discussed the sketchy flight record of Vietnam Airlines. We boarded and before long, were taxiing down the runway. The plane climbed and I was catching a great view of the old airbase when the plane very suddenly dropped nose first and plunged at least 100 feet before recovering much lower in the sky. The cabin pressure had changed noticeably and there was also an odd burning smell entering the cabin. Shortly thereafter, the plane slowed down and was doing a really steep bank when the pilot came on saying there were "Technical difficulties and we had to go back to the airport. Sorry" We landed safely and were quite eager to get off the plane. As we disembarked, a crew was examining the large cargo bay door again. The announcement should of been more accurate like" Ladies and Gentlemen, the big huge door on the side of the plane popped open in mid-air and we are all very lucky to be alive. Have a nice day." The confusion of the english speaking passengers who could not understand the vietnamese instructions made the situation seem even more panicky as we slowly found out through word of mouth (no announcement) that the flight was cancelled and we would have to leave the next morning.

We boarded a city bus and and Adam, our tour leader, took us to a nicer hotel than where the airline put you up and we got back to the airport the next morning before the big rush. Once through security, we noticed that the plane with the door issue was the only one on the tarmac. We discussed quite seriously renting a car. Then, a newer Airbus A320 jet pulled up and we breathed a sigh of relief. We boarded the plane, taxied out to the end of the runway about to take-off when the pilots said, "We have to return to the airport we are having technical difficulties. Our apologies" We couldn't believe it. When we came back to a stop, the pilot said "We are checking out a hot brake indicator. We will check it out and might only be a few minutes delay." True to his word about 5 mins later"The good news is that the brakes are okay but we need a qaulified engineer to sign off that it was inspected before leaving. We require a fax from Hanoi and that could be 2 hours maybe more. Please wait in the airport". (Jen here: We all tried to convince Ted that he should offer his services as a "qualified engineer" but he said that "Agro" was not the same as "aero"!). So here we were again in Nha Trang airport, deboarded from 2 planes in less than 24 hours! After about an hour or so, the fax came through and we were on our way!

We arrived in Saigon and it is definitely the more "Western" city in Vietnam as it looks very commercial. Lots of new shops, signs, fancy clothiers, etc. In the afternoon, we were trying to book another flight on Vietnam Airlines (we thought about cancelling though) to Phu Quoc, an island SW of Vietnam, but found that flights were booked up until March 21. So we had to take the bus/ferry option b/c we needed to get away from the mass of motorbikes and honking horns. It was also very expensive in Saigon.

The next day, the bus ride took us from Saigon bus depot down a secondary highway for about 6 hours to the town of Rach Gia. Along the way there were a few close calls when the driver passed and lots of honking but the closest call was during some road construction. Our bus and another bus were trying to crowd each other off the temporary, one-lane bridge over top a swamp/river crossing in the Mekong Delta. Our driver was literally sitting out his window and screaming at the other driver in Vietnamese and gesticulating wildly. Had it not been for the fact that the other bus was so close, that the driver could not open his door, it would likely have come to fisticuffs or pushing the other bus right over and off the road. The buses actually smacked mirrors. As the bus went by us, the passengers in the other bus looked helplessly out their windows into our faces only inches away separated by 2 panes of glass and looking equally terrified of rolling over as we were. Again, luckily the buses passed without further incident.

The ferry ride to the island was much quieter and uneventful. Yesterday, we rented a motorbike from our hotel and took off to explore the island. We ventured to the market in town to get some picnic stuff before heading out to a beach. To explain, by motorbike, I mean a city scooter type of bike with street tires. As we headed out of town the road turned to gravel but no big deal as it was very wide. As we got further away, ther road got narrower, more cows wandered down the path, and parts of the road were littered with large rocks and potholes. We tried a few sideroads to a beach and found the resorts and beaches not ideal so we went in search of the large public beach up the road indicated on the map. The road became narrower, involved many narrow bridge crossings, then deteriorated into a single track, goat path through a swampland covered in deep puddles, small concrete culverts and lots of other lost tourists who had various issues controlling their bikes. After sometime, we were quite obviously NOT at the beach and the road signs were of no use as our Vietnamese is not that good. We headed back to town where we walked into the fanciest resort in town, sat on their beach and had a picnic with our food. On the way out, we waved and smiled at the staff before heading out with our bike loaded down, like a local, with groceries and beer to take back to our hotel.

We leave for Saigon on the 7th or March and say farwell to Vietnam on Saturday. We will be in Bangkok till March 18 when we leave for Myanmar. Not sure what internet will be like while in Myanmar but will try to keep the world posted. If you don't hear from us until April all is ok.