Commuter

The move is complete! The house, not yet, but we are settling into West Medford nicely. We hear crickets at night, and the girls at the coffee shop gossip about the local church clergy and people say “Hi” when you pass them on the street. Evidently we moved to a small town....12 minutes by train outside of Boston.

That being said I am now a commuter. I have a train pass. I wave the train pass like it is a membership at an exclusive club, albeit one with pleather seats, grime covered windows and the ever-present smell of French fries.

Commuting on public transport is showing me a whole new side of the city. You meet all kinds of people. Most are in suits, going to office jobs. There are heaps of students, it is Boston after all. Then you have the people who come to busk, panhandle or just otherwise be part of the chaos.

My favorite today is a singer at Downtown Crossing:

"Jesus is on the red line, baby. Tell him what you need."

And in fact getting on the orange line, I did not meet Jesus. Hope you guys on the red had the promised luck.

Smile big. :)

Headed Back to the USA

Today we get on a flight to New York, the last stop on our trip. Asia has been fantastic. 6 weeks was not nearly enough time to even scratch the surface. We learned a great deal, relaxed, and met some great people along the way. We have seen places that we would love to return to and some that have been checked off the list. Maybe we will come back some day?

We have several blog posts that have not made it online. Look for a few back dated posts over the next few days.

Thanksgiving dinner never sounded so good. The food of China, Thailand, and Vietnam has been delicious, but now we are ready for some good old American home cookin. Bring on the Turkey, stuffing, and gravy!!

Same Same. But Different.

There is a saying in this part of the world “same same”... or more often “same same, but different” For example: Is that a real Versace handbag for $6? “same same”. What is the best way to the airport? “my taxi, same same”.

Chris bought a new shirt one day when we were low on clean clothing. The woman selling it tried to justify her price by telling us it was a Lacoste shirt. We laughed. Everyone knows that it isn't really Lacoste. “Same same”, she says. We settled on $3. The logo on my shirt is on the left. The real logo (from the Lacoste) website is in the right. As you can see, same same, but different.

In a land of knock offs and copy cats, the saying fits. Is that sausage really made of beef? “same same”. I'll pass.

To the tailors!

Hoi An is the best place in Asia to get custom made colthing. There are 100's of tailors who will take your measurements and produce suits, dresses, coats, and just about anything else in about 24 hours. It was a lot of fun, and a great activity considering the rainy weather.




We only planned to get a few things made, but the prices are very reasonable and it is nice to have clothing that fits so perfectly. Now we have a extra duffe bag full of clothing to bring home with us!

The rain continued the entire time we were in Hoi An. The Vietnamese don't seem to be at all disturbed by the rain. It is just part of life. Even as the river rose and broke its banks, they took it all in stride. The boat ladies can now tke you anywhere in town, just about river to door. We had to wade to the tailors and dinner on the last 2 days. Hopefully we will get some sun as we head farther north.

Nha Trang (not to be)

Remember the scene in Forest Gump where Tom Hanks is talking about his time in Vietnam? I think he says something like “and then it started to rain, and in continued to rain for 3 months”. We had a similar experience. It is the rainy season in south and central Vietnam. After a few days of nice weather, the skies opened and it began to pour. It has never really stopped.

We made an attempt to fly from Ho Chi Minh City to Nha Trang, but were denied by the weather. The pilot started to approach for landing in Nha Trang, dropped the landing gear and then out of nowhere pulled up on that plane so hard I thought we were in a lot of trouble. He explained that the weather had deteriorated. We circled for 15 minutes and then gave it another try with the same result We flew back to Ho Chi Minh where we were able to and then hopped a flight to Danang where they weather was a bit better.

Good Morning Vietnam!

We made it to Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam's largest city. We were warned about the chaotic streets, but this is something that is difficult to fully appreciate without visiting. There are more mopeds and motorbikes here than you could possible imagine. As far as we can tell, there are no traffic rules. There are certainly no crosswalks. Hundreds of motorbikes move slowly as one mass. It is a bit like river. Faster vehicles slide past slower ones – on what ever side or surface is easiest. Smaller vehicles tend to yield to larger ones – regardless of what side of the road or direction they are going in. Pedestrians find places to flow through as they cross. walks. We found it best to just hop into to traffic and move with it as you also move across the street. We have no photos of this (too much other stuff to worry about) so you'll just have to trust us.

We came to Ho Chi Minh City for the war history. We went to to the war museum and the Chu Chi Tunnels which were both fascinating and horrifying. Learning about such a controversial, historical war gave us pause when thinking about the world situation today.

Pum Restaurant, Patong Beach

Our last day in Thailand, what better to do than a cooking class? We met the group at Pum Cooking School and Restaurant on Ko Phi Phi. We learned a handful of dishes on Ko Phi Phi, but wanted to dive deeper into Thai cooking and go to the market. For this we came to Phuket. We never saw the beach in Phuket, just the inside of our hotel, the restaurant and the market. We learned to make 8 different dishes and 3 different curry pastes.



Dancing Fish in Green Lipstick Sauce, Penang Curry, Chicken and Cashew Nuts



Pad Thai, Fish Cakes in Kale Cups, Fresh Shrimp Spring Rolls


Mango sticky Rice


Coconut Dream...heaven in a bowl!



Green Curry and Red Curry sauces (or lipsticks as Pum calls them)



We learned how to identify and use all oft he Thai spices. We ate everything we made, so by the end of the day we were stuffed. There is no better food! We promised to share our knowledge and pass it on, who's up for Thai night?!

Kathrong Festival, Ko Phi Phi, Thailand

We celebrated the full moon on our last night on Ko Phi Phi. The annual Loy Krathong festival is a time of renewal, forgiveness and hope.

One part of the festival is the act of setting afloat “kathrongs” to honor Buddha. A kathrong is a small float. The base of ours was a slice of banana treee wrapped in banana leaves and decorated with mums, and orchids.Our kathrong was a gift from the Phi Phi Hotel. All the kathrongs were hand made and each one was a little different.


The Hotel, like many businesses on the island, made a larger more elaborate float. It was nearly 5 feet tall. The staff spent the entire day working on it. In addition to an incredible amount of flowers, there were carved melons and papayas in the shape of birds, fish, and flowers.


Everyone gathered on the beach after nightfall and started the ritual of placing all of the kathrongs in the water.


It goes something like this: You place coins on the kathrong to insure future wealth. You also put pieces of finger nail and strands of hair in the kathrong to send away mistakes of the past year. Then you pray for the coming year, light a candle & incense, and place the kathrong out into the water. We watched as ours slowly floated away from shore with 100's of others.

It was a happy and deeply peaceful ceremony that we appreciated more than expected. We feared it would just be a group of tourists marching down the the water, but the entire island seemed to be participating. Couples were clutching their kathrongs like they were an actual representation of their future success. Families posed for pictures along the shore. Shop keepers were sprawled out on the floor assembling their own kathrongs. I am glad we were part of it.

Another part of the evening's festivities was the launching of paper lanterns or khom fai. Made of paper that never caught fire, they operated like an unmanned hot air balloon. There was a fuel source that was lit, it heated the air, hot air caused the balloon to rise. They looked delicate but somehow managed fly out of site in about 20 minutes. The lanterns were absolutely beautiful and were another way the locals set cast away their troubles.

The local kids couldn't get enough of the fire balloons and ran group to group immediately assuming control of the lighting process. They were much better at getting the fuel lit than the rest of us. Also, they let off such a yell of joy when the balloons took off they made it all the more fun!


The celebration went late into the night. We have no idea when the locals knocked off to bed. We closed the town the night before with the group from Island Divers so by 12:30 we were heading in to sleep it off.

Relaxing on Ko Phi Phi

We have been on Ko Phi Phi in Thailand for about 5 days now. The diving course is over. We passed!

Angus taught us everything we know about Scuba and local Phi Phi nightlife.

We are loving beach life and Bangkok is a distant memory, which not such a bad thing. Bangkok is huge, steamy, hot city stuffed with knock-off shopping, red light districts and incredibly pushy tuk-tuk drivers. Our time was spent at the markets, reclining Buddha temple and taking boats up and down the river.



The Thais are devout Buddhists. Every shop in Bangkok had a shrine placed in the main room. Each morning we watched the tailor across the lane from our hotel light incense to place in his shrine. The staff at the hotel would bow to the shrine on their way in and way out of work everyday. Here on Ko Phi Phi there is a town shrine and every morning there is a fresh offering of rice, tea, juice and chicken.

Tonight the entire town is heading to the beach for Loy Krathong, a ceremony to honor the original Buddha. Everyone has been given lanterns to light and send into the sea. We've been told that if our raft floats our marriage will be successful. I have checked it's seaworthiness, and I think we are good to go!

More Wedding Pictures!

Our photographer, Ashley Smith, has posted all of her photos. We wanted to share them with all of you. Enjoy! We are loving Thailand. We just finished our open water Scuba certification today. Look out fish, here we come!

Ko Phi Phi

5 days without a post.... Now you know that only means one thing. We are just having too much fun. We are on Ko Phi Phi, a smallish island in the south of Thailand. It is magical. The center of island is a tiny village with a beautiful bay to each side. This is a picture from the highest point on the island. You can almost see our hotel, Phi Phi Island Cabana, in the distance. (Light green roof, the second to farthest structure). We decided to do a scuba diving certification course with Island Divers. Today we did our classroom sessions and our skills test. It all went very well and we are excited for our first 2 open water dives tomorrow. The diving is supposed to be phenomenal here on Phi Phi Island. We have no idea what we will see, but you will hear all about it!

Detour

We have changed our itinerary due to the severe flooding in northern Vietnam. The travel agent who sold us our train tickets says that the Hanoi train station is open... But the local Hanoi hotels we spoke to said it was closed. Either way, it sounds like a bad situation, so we have booked flights directly to Bangkok, Thailand. Hopefully the rain lets up soon.

It is only 7pm here. The polls have not yet opened on the east coast. We are going to find an ex-pat bar/cafe when we land in Bangkok to see some of the election coverage.