Drinking with the Locals

I hold up a small clear shot glass and say the incomprehensible Vietnamese toast.  I clank glasses with my host and fellow guests before downing my sixth shot of rice wine. Either the room is beginning to move in circles or I am beginning to feel the effects of homemade hooch. I have two choices: to stop drinking (the smart choice,) but I could offend our host -- the creator of this strong concoction or I could eat lots and lots of food and drink lots of water to counter the effects. I opted for choice two.

Wes and  I had such a good experience on our first home stay we wanted to try it again in Cuc Phuong National Park in Vietnam. We were staying on the outskirts of the park in a village with the Muong minority people. The Muong used to live deep inside the parks interior nestled in primary rain forest so dense entering it seems like another country.

Cuc Phuong was the first forest to be turned into a National Park in Vietnam.  Ho Chi Minh had seen to it to make it a park and made a point that it was important to protect forests for generations to come.

For the Muong people that lived in the newly formed park boundaries this meant relocating to protect the forest -- especially since they used slash-and-burn techniques to clear forest patches to plant crops. The government moved all the villages to the outskirts of the park to protect the land and the creatures living in it. (Monkeys, turtles and other animals are still be hunted inside the park boundaries for food and medicine.)

We stayed with a host family in a stilt house with a beautiful view of the surrounding valley and rice fields. Unlike our first home stay this one was not so primitive. Running water, electricity and a flush western style toilet were readily available. But the experience was still wonderful.

As we waited inside the house for dinner we heard the unmistakable hum of motorcycles echoing though the valley, and were getting closer. Our guide informed us that we would be sharing our quarters with two others who were stopping overnight here on their way to Hanoi. The two guys were American. We quickly made friends and prepared for dinner. One of them asked if we were ready to drink the rice wine. Apparently our host made his own wine and liked to share it with guests... and drink it.

Our host family prepared a feast large enough to feed the entire village.  We had Green Papaya Salad, spring rolls, spring rolls wrapped in leaves (my favorite) Pork with veggies, fried bean curd, grilled meat, cabbage, rice and much more.

We all sat in a circle on the floor around plates of steaming food. Each of us used a small bowl to hold our food in and chop sticks. Almost immediately after dinner began the rice wine was brought out. It was bottled in two crumpled litter water bottles and looked exactly like water. Shots were poured and first our host toasted our arrival at his home. After that the toasts kept coming. The two American guys toasted our host, we toasted our host, our guides, our health, our shoes, you name it, we toasted it! After every couple of shots our host would breath out loud and shake all the participants hands, (a sign to me that the alcohol was taking hold of his system as well.)

Once the alcohol hit my system I asked if could have smaller shots, (not participating was out of the question). It only occurred to me then that I was the only woman at the dinner table. The men chuckled and poured smaller shots for me. Wes was getting a little pink in the cheeks from the alcohol.

We all joked, told stories of our travels (some of us participated in pull-up competitions) and had a great time.

Our guide prepared tea and motioned for me to join him. I took this as my chance to escape the toasts. As the night wore on our hosts prepared our sleeping arrangements. Everyone slept on the floor on mats with blankets under mosquito nets.

Wes had a little more rice wine than I did and fell asleep as soon as he laid down. I lay awake in the heat listening to the sounds of bugs humming outside, someone snoring in the room and the occasional farm animal wandering under the house. We had a lot of fun that day and a lot to drink. I said a silent prayer to the rice wine gods not to inflict a hangover on Wes or I before falling off to sleep.

Rice, Rice and more... Rice!

In Cambodia if someone asks you, "have you eaten?" it translates to "have you eaten rice yet?" This seems to be true all over Asia, a meal is not a meal without rice. We definitely got accustomed to eating EVERY meal with rice, in fact, if it was not served and cost extra, we still ordered it. 

Over the past two months most of the scenery we saw has included a rice field, weather it was near the ocean, in the mountains or on very flat plains that seem to go on for miles. 

All of our tour guides, hostel owners, restaurant workers, everyone had a previous job as a rice farmer or their family was or is in the rice business. Our tour guide at Cuc Phuong National Park in Vietnam was a good example. "Before I was a tour guide I grew rice, I know how to do it still, I am an expert!" Indeed he was, as he sunk calf-deep into the mud and hunched close to the field to show me how to "clean" the mud before sticking in three or four little rice seedlings. 

From what I gathered from our guide in broken English, the first step to growing rice is to plow the field.  This is usually done with a water buffalo and a plow, or a gas powered plow. Either way, both are pretty manual and require a lot of strength to maneuver. 


The next step is to plant the seeds which are scattered in the plowed field. Once seedlings sprout about four inches they are pulled out of the field arranged in small bundles and set aside for yet another plowing of the field. 


The third step is to separate about three little clumps of roots which are replanted in VERY strait lines about six inches apart from other seedlings on all sides. When walking amongst the fields it reminds me of grid paper, I can't even draw a line that strait!

After that the rice is left to grow until harvesting which all depending on the type rice and climate can take three to six months. 


So our guide directed me over to some women who were busily planting their rice. I took off my shoes and wadded into the mud, at first I thought I would not stop sinking, it was pretty deep, warm and slimy, ick!

A woman handed me a small clump of seedlings and told me (in Vietnamese) how to plant the rice. I followed her lead and cleaned the mud before planting -- cleaning the mud meant to move it around a bit to make it flat. Then I pushed the little clumps of seedlings down about two inches into the mud. The women quietly giggled as I planted, not sure if it was a sign that I was doing it wrong or if I was doing it right but I thought I did a great job.

After about 20 minutes of planting (about all I am patient enough to do) I stood up and admired my work. One of the women said something to our guide that made everyone laugh. "She said that you did very well and can come back in 4 months to harvest the rice with them." I smiled and thanked them for humoring me. (Secretly wondering if they were going to redo my rows of rice once I was out of sight.)

That evening while we waited for dinner, I looked out the window at the rice fields, women and men were quietly finishing their work and returning home for dinner. Our guide said that people will work from about 7 in the morning till 6 at night, every day in their fields to ensure they have a good rice crop. They will then sell their crops for a meager price which will sustain their families till the next harvest. Now, know that I am no expert but it is hard work planting rice! It makes me appreciate the rice we have been eating in Asia, even more.

Feeding the Monks in Laos

I feel like I am working in a soup kitchen but I can't keep up with the demand. I grab balls of extremely hot sticky rice and throw them into the offering bowls as quick as I can. Some of the rice falls and hits the foot of a passing monk, I murmur sorry as I try to put rice in the next monk's bowl. This is not what I envisioned I would be doing at 5:30 a.m. in Luang Prabang, Laos.

Every morning bright and early the owner's wife at the guest house we are staying at gets up to pass out rice to feed the monks and pray in the Wat behind the guest house. 

I read about this practice and had seen monks with offering bowls all over Cambodia and Laos but not witnessed the acceptance of food. When I asked our guest house about what time to get up and observe it, the owner's son told me that it would be more interesting to go with his mother and help pass out food. 

Early the next morning I was given a white silk scarf to drape diagonally over my clothes, a basket of sticky rice and a woven stool to sit on. I was then hurried out towards the street with Wes walking behind half asleep and confused.

We set up shop on the street and I was shown how to form small rice balls with my fingers to drop into the bowls. Less than a minute later a procession of about 20 monks from age 50 down to about 7 came breezing up. I tried to form the balls and drop them in but those are some quick-walking monks! All I could do to keep up was grab rice throw in the pot and grab more rice. 

When the first procession had passed my instructor started sticking more rice in my basket. Then suddenly the next procession was shuffling by. At the end of this group, my instructor set down her basket and motioned me to follow her. 

We hurried into the Wat discarded our shoes outside the door. We kneeled down placed our hands together and said our silent prayers to Budda. (I have to admit one of my prayers was to be able to keep up with the next set of monks.). Then we hurried out of the temple just in time for the next set of monks marching down the street.

 I can't say I was observing much in this experience, I was so busy making rice balls all I could see was a blur of orange robes breezing past my face and the hollow sound of the opening and closing of offering bowls -- All of a sudden I am out of rice and there are still monks coming! My instructor whispers that it is OK, so I sit quietly as the last of the monks pass.

My instructor motions that we are done and I breathe a sigh of relief. This experience was definitely more stressful than I was envisioning it would be.  But I am glad I did it. It's another skill I can add to my resume.

Home Stay in Cambodia

I try to lay perfectly still in the hammock with my eyes closed, the sound of pigs, chickens and dogs evident all around me, I have a BIG headache for the heat and I am trying to get it under control. I shift around and hear a murmur of voices speaking a different dialect. I open my eyes and peer to my left. About 20 children and adults are standing around staring at me, watching my every move. If I didn't have such a bad headache I would think this was really awkward, but at the moment... I don't care.

Wes and I and our guide, a local from Ban Lung had made the trek in the sweltering heat of the jungle, I thought the dry air of Colorado was bad but here... you sweat a gallon of water just walking a few steps. We passed through many types of terrain on our trek, through dense primary forest, secondary forest, farm land, orchards and of course rice fields.


We stayed in a small village about a 4 hour walk from the ferry crossing we started at. There was no electricity, no running water and apparently not a lot of blond haired individuals that passed through this area because the people keep their distance. But everyone is very curious. 


When we arrived our guide told us to go have a shower (which means to go throw water on yourself using a bowl.) The old village chief guided us down to the watering hole about a 15 minute walk from the village. The villagers had dug a wide hole into a hill, there was an underground spring feeding this hole, so the water was, ehh, cleaner than the water flowing through the streams... we think. The chief handing me the bowl and pointed to the stream. Our guide had said we would have privacy, but this wasn't happening, there was a small line of women and children waiting to use their bathing hole watching us. I didn't want to be improper, so I used the bowl to wash my arms legs and head, the chief laughed every time I rinsed an arm or leg, he then stripped to his underwear, squatted by the hole and poured water over his head. Wes did likewise... men have it easier sometimes! Through a lot of pointing and hand movements we figured out that their rice crop was not doing well this year, the rain had not come yet and they had to replant again.


After our "shower" I took a nap while Wes went around the village. Wes walked around the village, taking pictures (when the children were not running away from him) and talking to our guide. Our guide had brought a bottle of whiskey and Wes ate dinner and drank with the locals and had an awesome time.

During the night the sky lit up, you could see the Milky Way perfectly. I laid in my hammock and took in the scenery. I heard the quiet hum of something flying over me, a beetle. It was the size of my fist, no joke! I was glad of the mosquito net over the hammock. At about 4 a.m. Wes and I and the guide were awakened by the sound of a bell, the cows, for whatever reason had wandered under the house and were standing right next to use, their bells rattled. Our  guide got up and shooed them away.


The next morning we ate noodle soup for breakfast with the normal crowd of gawkers. What we did not eat the villagers heated back up and added to their small meal of rice. 

We packed up and headed out of the village. Along our route we encountered three more villages, all these villages are animist, they do not practice Buddhism, but instead believe in different spirits. They also believe in making sacrifices. Our guide told us they used to sacrifice people, but now just they wary trekkers they can snatch, just kidding. They sacrifice animals, they do this for a good crop, the start of a new year (which is determined on the start of the rainy season), for guests and also if a family is having bad luck. We saw evidence of this at every village we stopped at.

We finished our trek at the river. Our guide pulled out his mobile phone and called the boat driver to see if he was waiting for us... so much for being in a remote area... We took small boat down the river 45 minutes back to the ferry crossing. Our experience trekking in the area has really been a highlight from our trip, something we will never forget.

Getting Ready for the BIG Adventure

Wes and I have been busily preparing for the longest trip either of us have ever been on. We are heading to Asia next week for a little over two months! We have gotten many questions so here are the answers to a couple of the most frequently asked questions:
Q: Why Asia?
A: Why not!? Also, we thought visiting numerous countries in Asia would be a great idea because flying to Asia takes so long, so it makes sense to use this long span of time to trek around and see the many many sights.

Q: Where are you going in Asia?
A: We are going to China first (Beijing), then Cambodia, Laos,  Vietnam and ending in Hong Kong. We have a little over two weeks in most countries but we are leaving our itinerary open ended and flexible.

Q: What do you want to see?
A: Just to name a few... The Great Wall, Three Gorges, Terracotta Warriors, Chengdu, Chirssy in Cambodia!!, Angkor Wat, beaches, Luang Prabang, Mekong River, Halong Bay, Hanoi and Sapa... just to name a few.

Q: Why are you going for such a long time?
A: When else would we EVER have this amount of time to take a trip like this? Since we are both unemployed at the moment and Wes is out of school for the summer, the window of opportunity was right. Plus we are hoping to have a family in the next ehhh couple of years... not sure when exactly, so now looked like a good time.

Sooooo we are super excited. We have been packing and repacking -- we are taking backpacks and are trying to do this trip cheap so we will be staying in hostels, this will be our first hostel experience! We have read guidebooks, gotten advice from friends and the Internet, stocked up on antibiotics, received many shots and have 77 days worth of malaria meds to take. I will be blogging about our trip (when we have Internet access) So we hope you have a chance to read up on our adventures... and we hope that you are super jealous ;) Till later!

Tummy Troubles on the Lares Trail in Peru

My heart raced as we unloaded our gear in preparation for the trek. We were finally going to start our hike! I knew that it would be difficult, the elevation really did have us a little out of breath and I knew we were going to be ascending rapidly. Our trek would start at about 10,000 ft. We would make an evaluation gain of 5,000 feet over the next three days. The guide brought over some poles that many of the trekkers had reserved for the hike, mine were pretty beat up and the handle was coming off but so there were no replacements so I would have to make due.  The beginning of the trek took us strait up a steep trail that followed a river valley. I could tell that most people were already feeling it on our first stop.  Our guide reassured us that we would be stopping often.

Around 3:00 p.m. we stopped for lunch (yes a late lunch again!) But the food was awesome! Our cook and crew had set up a tent and fixed a two course meal including garlic bread, cream of asparagus soup, breaded chicken with vegetables and we finished up with tea at the end. The tea was made of coca leaves (what cocaine is made out of.) One of the trekkers jokingly asked if we would have traces of cocaine in our system when we went home because of all the tea we were drinking.  Our guide told us no and went into a rather lengthy description of how cocaine is made, exactly what ingredients are used, how many kilos of coca leaves that are used and about how long the process took... a little more information than we needed to know.

After digesting our food we set off on the trail again to our final stop, camp for the night. I noticed that after lunch Wes was beginning to lag behind, he didn't look like he was feeling all that great. He soon fell farther behind the group and I hung back with him and a guide. Wes was running pretty low on water.. because he drinks as much as a camel does, but luckily we found a woman selling water and Gatorade, she was sitting on a hill in what looked to be the middle of nowhere. We were lucky! We finally reached camp at dusk tired from the trek but again our crew had beat us to the camp spot... and had been there for quite a while apparently, they had set up all our tents and were already preparing dinner. We were told to relax before dinner. Wes seemed to be looking a bit better. Our guide thought that the elevation was getting to him. Apparently that was not the problem.

Wes got sick to his stomach.  I don't ever think I have seen Wes with an upset stomach but he was SICK. The only thing we can guess was that he had eaten something that was not agreeing with him. The two of us were up till after midnight. I was afraid I was going to have to pick Wes up and drag him down the mountain to get help, the guides were not convinced as I was that Wes was in any real danger. But he could not even keep water down. He kept babbling deliriously and around 11:00 he started to run a fever. I had to give him a Stern talking to in order to get him to take an Advil to break his fever he would not take it for fear that it would make him nauseous, but after 15 minutes of coercing him into taking the pill his fever broke and he finally fell asleep. 

The next morning I knew we would not continue on with the group. Wes was still a little sick and really weak from the night before. One of the guides agreed to make the trek back down the mountain with us and two other trekkers decided that the altitude was too much and would come with us. The hike was much more pleasant descending. The weather was nice in the morning but warming up fast as noon approached. Wes could still not eat anything so we mixed some powdered pedialyte in his drink (to replace the electrolytes he had lost.) The end of the hike was tiring but we made it down the mountain and found a bus to take us back to Calca. In Calca we would spend the night and then meet back up with our group the next day after they finished the hike.

Back in Calca we had one other snag. There was no place deemed "safe" for foreigners to eat. This was a big problem because we didn't want to make Wes any sicker than he already was. Our host at the guest house we were staying at told us she could cook us dinner. And charge us 10 soles (about $3 dollars!) We ate dinner in her residence in the dinning room. She turned on the stereo which was playing all 80s love songs, most of which we sung along to...

That night Wes was feeling much better, but I was not. I knew that I was in for the same trouble as Wes. By the next morning I could not get out of bed which was a problem because we had to head to our meeting spot to join with the rest of the group and go to our next stop. I filled up on Imodium and hoped for the best. We took a taxi about an hour to meet the group. Wes and the other two trekkers sat in the back, it was deemed that if I was going to get sick, the best place for me was the front... so I could throw up in the taxi driver that was overcharging us... just kidding. Our guide sat in the trunk with the luggage pushed to the side.

We met our group of joyous trekkers at a small restaurant/ home for the victory dinner. It would have been a lot of fun had I not been sick, our guide showed us how they made a locally brewed alcoholic beverage, I think it was corn beer but I was not paying enough attention. There was also a fenced off room containing about 50 guinea pigs. Now these were not meant as pets but rather as food. I had thought about trying this delicacy once we got back to Cusco but after seeing the little fur balls running around I knew guinea pig was off my menu.

Luckily I did not get sick in front of any of the group, except Wes... my stomach trouble lasted about a day. Back in Cusco Wes and I slept quite a bit to get our strength back and by the end of the trip we were back to normal.

I must say that this was one of the strangest trips we had been on, usually we are super excited about the location and try to pack in as many activities as possible but the mudslides had kept us from Machu Pichu and our stomachs had kept us from completing our trek. I also must admit I have never slept so much while on vacation. I know one day we will go back to Peru and see Machu Picchu but it is not high on our priority list. The trip taught us that indeed, antibiotics are imperative for stomach illnesses. Which is why in preparation for our Asia trip we made sure we have enough for multiple illnesses.

Catching our Breath in Peru

As Wes and I walked the crowded streets of Cusco on the first day of our trip to Peru I found myself breathing heavily trying to take in the thin air of a city.  A city that sits high in the Andes at over 11,000 feet. I knew that I would feel tired -- not only for the elevation, but because of the 4 hours of sleep we got in Lima the night before. Our hotel room was a sweltering box with NO air conditioning and a window that looked out on another hotel room across a tiny air shaft. Yes, jet lag and lack of sleep were contributing to my over all tiredness... I should be taking a nap but my stomach was leading the way through Cusco and sleep is not an option until my tummy was happy. 

We followed our group of dazed travelers (about 8 of us in total) down a narrow street to see Incan-built walls which are now the foundations for other buildings. Why was I not eating yet? Well our trip leader has promised to point out some restaurants "safe for foreigners" after our brief walking tour. I gave Wes a small frown as an indication that if we do not eat soon I will be forced to start chewing on his arm. I could tell he was tried too. Finally our tour ends at Plaza de Armas, we headed to a restaurant to eat a late lunch at 3:00 p.m.  With food in my stomach I was able to concentrate on the views and take in my surroundings. Cusco is beautiful, the churches are all colonial style, Plaza de Armas is clean with a well-manicured square in which dozens of tourists were sitting around... the only slight annoyance was the millions of hawkers selling gourds, hats and paintings, but this was a normal part of traveling to a touristy destination. I noticed two women sitting next to us in the restaurant that seem perturbed at everything, the food, the service, each other...

I wonder if they are possibly annoyed that they will not be going to Macchu Pichhu, the big reason people travel to Cusco. Wes and I knew it was not going to happen after reading the news about the rain and mudslides that had taken out roads and the railroad.

This was also evident when we took our first bus out into the countryside, mini landslides were apparent in several places by the roads. Our guide said the heavy rains had ruined crops and especially in the high country, farmers would not be able to grow more crops this year making food scarce. Only in places like the Sacred Valley would it be possible to grow crops during the dry-winter season.

Our guide pointed out the ruins of storage bins high on the mountains that were used to store potatoes and other goods -- some for many years. Different villages would work together and use the storage bins communally. They actually dried out the potatoes by squeezing the water out and basically shrinking the potato to about 25 percent of it's original size. Using this technique the potatoes could be stored and used for many years. In cases of drought the villages would have food and everyone shared.  Apparently though this is no longer a practice and many villagers would suffer this year.

We made our way over a 14,000 ft pass that led down into a the Lares Valley where we would start our three day trek which included two nights of camping. More on this later!