Takeo

10/25/2006-10/26/2006

We spent the next 2 days in a very small, rural town called Takeo. It was about a 2 hour drive from Phnom Penh. However, before leaving we went to the Toul Sleng Museum directly across from our guest house, which was where many people were held, interrogated, and executed by the Khmer Rouge from 1975 to 1979. It was pretty disturbing learning about the genocide of Cambodia, but I learned a lot. Here are a couple pictures of the museum, which had been a high school before being converted to a prison.


On the way to Takeo, we stopped at a zoo/wildlife preservation center and saw a bunch of cool animals. Here are a couple of pics.

We also stopped off at an old temple along the way. After climbing 412 steps to reach it, we got to see some really great views.

In Takeo we stayed at the home of Supin and Mach in the countryside. Scott, our group leader, has been friends with these wonderful people for a few years, and we have the very unique opportunity of homestaying with them. They both speak very good English. Supin's brother was one of the first few people to escape the Khmer Rouge, and he moved to the U.S. and works as a medical scientist. Very amazing story. In addition to fantastic meals, Supin made us some sticky rice banana cakes, which were incredible. My mom definitely needs to learn how to make them. Supin and Mach are both teachers and nearby schools, and the next day we visited the schools and spoke English with a lot of the students. Some of them spoke very well even though they had never met native speakers, and it was a very rewarding experience.

Here are a few pictures. This one is of Supin and Mach's house.

Here is our group with our mode of transportation.

This one is a picture of some of the students in one of the classrooms.

Lastly, here I am with some of the students with whom I spoke.

Crossing Into Cambodia

10/24/2006

Today was a huge travel day. We left early in the morning for a drive to the border between Vietnam and Cambodia. However, along the way we stopped at a place called the Cu Chu Tunnels, which was a large underground network of tunnels built by the Vietnamese during theVietnam War to avoid the American bombs and defend against the American troops. The tunnels were incredibly small with a cross-section of about 60 cm by 80 cm. We were able to go through one of the tunnels, which had been enlarged for our larger American bodies. The air was so stale. I can't imagine how they lived in such conditions. The picture above is of a hidden entry to the tunnels. The Vietnamese soldier would defend himself until he had to hide at which point he dropped into the tunnel and concealed himself. We also saw B-52 bomb holes, lots of brutal booby-traps (see below), tanks, a firing range, and more. The picture below shows a trap used to catch soldiers jumping out of helicopters. The platform rotates when stepped on causing the person to fall into sharp bamboo spears. Ouch.

After the Cu Chu Tunnels, we went to the border. It took a while to leave Vietnam and get visas for Cambodia, and then we had a 4 hour drive to our guest house in Phnom Penh, which was a very bumpy ride. Cambodia is a very flat country with a brilliant green color that is reminiscent of Laos. It's almost their winter here, and it's extremely hot. I can't imagine what the summer is like.
In Phnom Penh we settled in at our guest house and then grabbed some dinner. We didn't really have time to do much since we are leaving for Takeo tomorrow, but we will be back in Phnom Penh in a few days to explore. One thing about Phnom Penh is that the prices here approach those found in America, which is a bit annoying. At least the quality of food and service seems very good.

Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon)

10/22/2006-10/23/2006

Today we traveled from Hoi An to Ho Chi Minh City, aka Saigon. However, before we left we participated in a fun run in Hoi An at like 6 am. I ran the 4 km race and did all right. Travis and Emma were the only ones in the group to run the 10 km race. Emma was the first woman to finish, and they both got these massive trophies that are going to be such a hassle to carry for the rest of the trip. They'll provide some good stories, however. I don't have any pictures of that at this point.

Saigon is another big Vietnamese city. It is very large, spread out, and has some crazy roundabouts. I walked through several parks where a lot of the local people were exercising and playing badminton and other games. Here are a couple pictures.


During the second day we were there we visited the Reunification Palace, which was where the north and south Vietnamese reunited. The palace is shown in the picture below. It wasn't too interesting, and I spent the rest of the day just wandering around throughout the city.


I'll leave you with one last (and possibly disturbing) photo of our group leader (lady in red) during our little fashion show. Fortunately, it's not really his dress.

Hoi An

10/19/2006-10/21/2006

Today we traveled from Hue to Hoi An, which is a town that seems to live off its tailoring services and is also full of tourists. During our 5 hour van ride to Hoi An, we stopped off at Marble Mountain, which is a mountain that contains some caves. The following picture shows some of the really interesting lighting effects seen in one of the caves. Apparently some of the Vietnamese had used the caves during the Vietnam War.


There wasn't a whole lot to do in Hoi An besides eat good food, get clothes made, and go to the beach. That's not to say that those things aren't fun, however. Actually one morning I was there I got to play tennis with Brendan. We were both surprised to find a court, and we rented the court, racquets, and balls for an hour. We were both a bit rusty initially but came into reasonable form after a bit of practice. I ended up breaking strings toward the end of our session, and I slyly returned that racquet under the intact one so that the staff wouldn't notice. They only had to racquets, so unfortunately we weren't able to play again. Here is a picture of the court.



During our second day in Hoi An we had a picnic dinner at the beach in order to have one last hoorah with Lindy, who had to go back to California to be with her grandfather due to his illness. It was sad to see her go, but we had a very nice time.

Hoi An is full of tailor shops begging to make you clothes. The clothes seem to be good quality (I'm not much of an expert), and they are dirt cheap to be custom made. I got a three-piece suit with an extra shirt for $70. I probably could have gotten in cheaper if I looked a little harder. I also tried to get some clothing gifts for my mom, dad, sister, and brother. We'll see how those turn out with me estimating sizes. I'll apologize to them in advance. A few nights later we had a fashion show to display all the clothes that we had made. Here are a few pics.


During our last full day in Hoi An, we helped out at an orphanage that was being run by an Australian volunteer. She had been a lawyer in Australia and then gave that up to be a volunteer in Vietnam. Very interesting. Here is a picture at the orphanage.

Hue

10/18/2006


We arrived in Hue this morning after taking another night train from Hanoi. We took a motorbike tour of the city during the afternoon, which was very interesting and fun. Each of us was given a motorbike driver who drove us around in a group. The picture above is of our motorbike posse. The guide was very funny. When he was talking about how hard the Vietnamese women work in the rice fields, he said the American women wouldn't be able to do such hard labor because of too many "cheeseburgers, computer, and Tiger beer." You probably had to be there to understand how funny the guy was. We moto'd all over and saw pagodas, rice fields, a hill with bunkers from the Vietnam War, a monk chanting session, ladies making conical hats and incense, etc. Here is a picture of our group.


At the end it got pretty crazy because there was some heavy traffic. There were motos and cars everywhere, and I saw two people get in a low speed collision. It was quite an interesting and chaotic experience.

Halong Bay

10/15/2006-10/17/2006


We spent 3 days of our stay in Vietnam in Halong Bay, which is a beautiful bay with some incredible scenery. This picture is of our beach camp where we learned how to do some sea kayaking. I have a rough life. It was pretty fun to kayak around the huge bay and see all of the massive kaarsts, which are limestone rock formations all over the water as can be seen in the following photo, which also has the boat on which we stayed for 2 nights and 3 days.


Living on the boat for a couple days was pretty fun. The boat had three levels, so jumping off the top and doing flips gave me a nice adrenaline rush. At night all the boats in the area would come together to make a circle. There were police boats in this area, and the overall purpose was to minimize the possibility of pirates coming aboard and stealing our stuff. It worked well, but I can't say that I saw any pirates. We also got to kayak through some caves that were only accessible at certain times of the day due to water levels. Here is a picture from the entrance/exit of one of them.

Back to Hanoi

10/14/2006

This is a picture of typical Hanoi in that motos are everywhere and horns are constantly being sounded. We arrived in Hanoi this morning via the night train. We would spend one more day here before heading off to Halong Bay for some much-needed luxury on the beach and in the boat. After spending the morning watching a marathon of the TV show Entourage on HBO, I didn't do too much since I felt like I'd already seen much of Hanoi. One interesting store was that this morning Travis, Ellie, and I were looking for a laundry place to wash all of our nasty clothing from climbing the mountain. We found a place, and some guy on a motorbike came up and offered to do our laundry for cheap. I'm not sure why we actually gave it to him, but we arranged a pickup time at 10:30 pm and the guy actually showed up. We were pretty worried, however. It seems like he could make more money off our clothes than off the 1 dollar per kilogram price he was charging.

This evening we went to see a water puppet show, which is a traditional form of Vietnamese theater. The show consisted of puppets in the water being moved around while attached to sticks. It wasn't very exciting. At least it was short and the music was good.

UPDATE

Because it has been a long time since I've done any blogging and because I don't want to spend all day in the Internet cafe, I've decided to just post pictures and some text where applicable.

Nathan

Recovery Day

10/13/2006

Last night wasn't much fun. I think I spent more time in the bathroom than in my bed. I got up around 9:30 am. I was surprisingly not sore at all except for maybe my ankles, but I had pretty much no endurance. Walking up stairs was very tiring. I'm not sure if that was due to the climb or due to the sickness. Probably both. I still didn't have an appetite but munched on some granola. I started feeling better a bit. Before grabbing some lunch, I decided to check to see if my MCAT scores were posted even though they were supposed to be out tomorrow. I was slightly nervous, but not really. The scores actually were posted, and I was quite thrilled with my scores. I basically just rested for the remainder of the day until we left on another night train to go back to Hanoi. I'm very relieved that I'm done climbing that mountain. It probably wasn't very tough of a climb compared to others, but it was pretty tough for us (at least me) since we haven't done any training. The guide said that he climbs the mountain about 4 times a week. I asked him if he was tired at all after we were done, and he said "a little bit." The picture at the right is a view of Sapa from our hotel.

Mt. Fansipan Day 2

10/12/2006

Today was a monster trekking day. After a very poor sleep for me, we set off at about 7:30 am. Michal, who had been throwing up last night, decided to turn back after about 5 min. I learned pretty soon that this was a very good decision for her since today was so much more difficult than yesterday was. We found that out pretty quickly as very soon after leaving the camp the trail became largely uphill. There was a long stretch that had a bamboo railing reinforced by steel for up to hold onto/pull against to proceed on the trail. There were also many sections that were steep and rocky and required you to use your hands as well as your feet to climb up. At some points there were big rocks that couldn't be climbed without the help of fallen bamboo trees that we used to pull against like a rope to get up.

This trekking day was much more difficult than yesterday. It was somewhat cold and drizzly. My core stayed warm enough, but my toes and fingers were numb pretty much the entire time. It took about 3 or 4 minutes just to tie my shoes due to the lack of sensation in the fingers. I was especially tired toward the top. Even when I walked on the flat ground I was breathing hard due to the effects of the higher elevation. It took us about 4 hours to get to the summit, which had a nice rock and flag marking the highest point in Vietnam (see below). It was a huge relief to get to the top. We had lunch there, which wasn't very fun since it was cold and windy. We had white bread, baguettes, hard-boiled eggs, cheese, oranges, and apples. Everyone was filthy with mud, which may have contributed to most of us getting sick over the next few days.

After lunch we headed back down the mountain. I soon learned that this would be a very long, difficult trip because my stomach had started to hurt pretty bad. I think the nausea was induced by the hard exercise, as this seems to happen to me when I exercise really hard for some idiopathic reason. Eating a not so fresh hard-boiled egg and a bunch of other food really quickly probably didn't help either. Going downhill is not always as fun as it would seem. You sometimes have to go very slowly because the steep terrain could be very slippery and dangerous. In addition, climbing this mountain was very up and down, so going down the mountain still had a lot of uphill climbs. It took about 3 hours to get back to the camp. I felt pretty miserable most of the time. Once we got to the camp, we packed up our gear and began the last leg of the trek that we had done yesterday. This was much easier and took about 2 hours. It was pretty much flat or had not very steep hills. Nobody cared about the mud or stream water at this point. We pretty much just plowed through as fast as our weary legs could take us. It was a great relief once we made it to the starting point. After a bit of a wait, we got picked up by the van for a ride back to the Cat Cat Hotel. I was exhausted.

When we got to the hotel, we were greeted by the rest of the group as well as the 100 step climb up to our rooms. I immediately took a shower, which took a long time because of the multiple layers of mud on my body. My stomach wasn't feeling very good, and I had bad diarrhea (sorry). I had some bread and jam but had no appetite. I just went to bed. Climbing the mountain was probably the most physically exhausting experience that I've had I think. I don't think I would have been able to do it if I had been sick before reaching the summit.

Mt. Fansipan Day 1

10/11/2006 Today was the first day of the Mt. Fansipan climb. We were told that it would be a 2 day climb during which the first day we would climb to a camp about 2 hours from the summit, drop our bags, go the the summit, go back down to the camp, sleep, and climb to the bottom on the 2nd day. This wasn't exactly what happened. After a few delays, we headed out around 9:30 am for a 30 min drive up to our starting point, which was actually a good amount up the mountain already. Mt. Fansipan is about 3100 meters high, I think. The picture to the right is of some of us before the start of the climb. Just before our first break, we saw some people returning. They said something like the trek was very bad, that it was "dangerous," and that there was "corruption." This puzzled those of us who heard them, but I think that English may not have been their first language. They also didn't have very good shoes. The first day was really not very difficult. There were some uphill and downhill parts, but none of it was particularly challenging. It was drizzling the entire time and very muddy. We had one main guide named Teh (I think), who was very nice. There were also a couple other guides who didn't speak English but were very good at carrying large quantities of stuff. The scenery was probably very beautiful, but I'll never really know because it was too foggy to see much. We made it to a camp at about 1:30 pm and started to leave the stuff we wouldn't need for the summit. However, Teh then told us that we would sleep there and climb to the summit tomorrow. We were all a bit stunned and confused because that is not what we had thought we would be doing. We were explicitly told not to bring anything to do (books, etc.) since there would be know free time, so we had a ton of time to kill before bed. At least the food was great. Sleeping wasn't quite as good.

Sapa

10/10/2006

We got off the night train in a town called Lao Cai at about 7 am and immediately got onto an AC bus for an hour drive to Sapa (above). The train ride was surprisingly comfortable. Each little cab had two sets of bunk beds, and I was able to sleep quite well. Night trains seem like a very good way to travel. Sapa is a small town in the mountains that is surrounded by villages of the various ethnic groups in Vietnam. After climbing the 100 steps up to our hotel and unloading our stuff, we had breakfast and then Scott briefed us on our options for the following 3 days we would be spending in Sapa. We could climb Mt. Fansipan (highest mountain in Vietnam), trek for 3 days through the villages, or do day trips while staying in town. I chose to climb the mountain, along with Richard, Travis, Ellie, Emma, Dani, and Michal. Everyone else chose to stay in Sapa to do day trips.

I spent the rest of the morning wandering the town and walking away from all of these Hmong girls and women trying to sell me stuff. The Hmong are an ethnic group and Vietnam, and several of the girls would wait at the hotel entrance to try to get you to buy things. They are incredibly nice. They speak great English and can remember the names of everyone in our group. It's just not very easy to sell anything to me. I think one woman followed me about 100 meters before giving up. After lunch I walked to Cat Cat village, which is a Hmong village. It was very foggy and drizzly, so I was not able to appreciate the nice views as I would have on a clear day. The walk back to the hotel was uphill and thus a bit tiring. I thought it would be a good warmup for tomorrow's climb. After the hike Scott gave us a 45 min lecture on the history of Vietnam. Mrs. Bell would be embarrassed about how little I know even after studying the country thoroughly in senior IB history.

Day 3 in Hanoi

10/9/2006

This morning I woke up at 6 am to go exercise with the locals at the lake (picture at right) near the Old Quarter. Every morning much of the Hanoi population goes to the lake to do morning exercises, which consist of anything from walking and stretching the badminton and aerobics. I ran with Emma for about 25 min or about 3 times around the lake. I was quite tired at the end, and the pollution was becoming bad even at that time in the morning. After the run I just walked around observing. It was quite interesting. I particularly enjoyed watching the badminton as well as this game where they used their feet instead of racquets to get the shuttlecock over the net (kind of like volleyball except using your feet and a different ball).

After watching and participating in the morning exercise, I went with the group to the Temple of Literature, which had been Vietnam's first university. I liked the Chinese influence on the architecture, but besides that it wasn't too interesting. However, the second largest drum in the world is located there (see left). They didn't play it for us, but apparently it makes the sound of thunder up to 5 km away when struck. After the Temple of Literature, the entire group went out to lunch at this place called KOTO, which stands for Know One Teach One. This organization was founded by a guy from New Zealand, and the restaurant takes in kids from the Hanoi streets and trains them to work in the restaurant. There are several places like this in Hanoi.

I spent much of the rest of the afternoon emailing and blogging. I had a quick dinner at that Bun Bo restaurant (see right), and then I had to get packed up for our night train to Sapa. Hanoi has been a very interesting and exciting city, but I feel like I've seen enough of it.

Hectic Hanoi

10/8/2006

I spent most of today just exploring Hanoi by following the walking tour included in our trip booklets. The walking tour basically takes us through the streets of the Old Quarter, which is apparently the most interesting part of Hanoi. The Old Quarter consists of a maze of busy streets in which each street specializes in selling one type of product, such as silk, handicrafts, candy, herbs, coffee, etc. In the old days, the products were created and sold on the streets of the Old Quarter. However, now the products are just sold on the streets and created in other locations. The Old Quarter of Hanoi is such an interesting city because on one street you'll find silk stores and then on the next street you'll find blacksmiths performing their trade. It's just fun to wander around and see what you find. Just don't get hit by a motorbike.

I have to admit that I did fall for a scam performed by a lady selling pineapples. I was taking a picture of a monument, and this lady puts onto my shoulder this wooden stick with pineapples on each end (see right). Then she asks to take my picture. I knew it wouldn't be free, but I was a sucker and let her do it. Then she was asking for 50,000 dong (like 3 bucks). I said no. Then she said 20,000 dong. I reluctantly accepted. At least she gave me 2 bags of pineapple and I got a good picture and story out of it, so it wasn't a complete loss.

The picture below is of a bike with a ton of fish baskets on it that I saw at the Museum of Ethnology. The sign said that somebody used to ride it, but I'd have to see it to believe it.

Good Morning, Vietnam!

10/7/2006

This morning we had an early flight from Vientiane to Hanoi. Goodbye Laos, good morning Vietnam! (trite but true). The airplane trip went smoothly. Visas took some time, but there were no problems, fortunately. Hanoi is a huge, extremely developed city. It's pretty much a smack in the face compared to the laid back Laos. The Hanoi streets are insane. Motorbikes are everywhere. I honestly don't even know what side of the road they drive on since it's so chaotic. You just have to look for gaps through which to walk in order to get across streets. There is a constant din of horns being sounded for no apparent reason, and you basically have to walk directly on the streets since the sidewalks are essentially motorbike parking lots and extensions of people's homes. A lot of people cook, eat, and play games on the sidewalks (see right). It took a while to get oriented to the map, but after that navigation was fairly straightforward.

For lunch I went with Richard and Brendan to this great Vietnamese place called Bun Bo. We were a bit confused when we got there since only Vietnamese people were there and nobody speaking English. Eventually somebody motioned for us to go upstairs where we found tiny tables and chairs. We kind of waited there for somebody to give us a menu; instead, a lady just walked up and gave us three bowls of food. It was a noodle soup with beef, and it was definitely one of the best meals I've had. Plus it only cost 16,000 dong, the equivalent of about 1 US dollar. The establishment itself is really cool. You had no choice since they only offer one dish, Bun Bo. At the front of the restaurant they have big bowls of all the ingredients. Then they put out like 10 smaller bowls at a time and fill them like an assembly line. It was great.

We just explored the city for the rest of the day. Later that night the entire group went out to dinner in celebration of Travis' birthday. Travis is the one in the picture to the left.

River Kayaking

10/6/2006

This morning we left Vang Vieng in songtaos to go to Vientiane, the capital of Laos. However, about midway through the trip we stopped to go white-water kayaking. The kayaks we used were two-person kayaks, and I went with one of the guides. The kayaking was pretty good, but the guide I was with didn't speak English, which made it a little less fun. There were only 3 sets of rapids, and somehow my kayak tipped on the first set. I'm not sure why, but at least I can blame it on my guide partner since he was the one in the back thus controlling where the kayak goes (at least that's what I'll tell myself). We were the only ones to tip involuntarily. We stopped for lunch at a rocky spot on the river, and apparently the rocks were pretty slippery. I learned this when I was climbing on them to find a tree to urinate behind. I slipped and got banged up pretty bad. I got some scrapes on my stomach and elbows, bruised up my knee, and got a nice little avulsion on my foot. Nothing really hurt, just my pride. At least the lunch was fantastic.

In Vientiane there was a big festival going on since tomorrow is the start of the second biggest holiday in Laos. There were stands selling dessert sticky rice, ferris wheels, merri-go-rounds, concerts, carnival games, and clothes stands. It was neat to see all the Lao people enjoying themselves. The picture below is of our guide Thong-Khoon, who accompanied us on all of our travels throughout Laos.

Vang Vieng

10/5/2006

We again woke up really early this morning to take a 6 hour AC van ride from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng, a small town on the Nam Song river. The ride was extremely winding and up and down, but I was able to read a book called Tuesdays With Morrie, which was excellent. I understand why my dad gives a copy of the book to all of the ER residents. Hopefully I'll be able to incorporate some of the book's guidelines into my life.

We arrived in Vang Vieng and checked in to our great guest house overlooking the river (see right). There wasn't really anything to see in this town, but we were able to go tubing down the river, which was pretty relaxing. There were several stops on the river for drinks and zip swinglines. One swingline was pretty awesome. You climbed up about 15-20 feet above the water. Then you held on to a rope and handle and just dropped off the tower. I was able to go really fast on the swing and launch pretty high. It was great. This one guy not from our group dropped from the tower but didn't have a good grip on the handle causing him to smack the water flat on his back. It was pretty hilarious, except we saw him later on the river on the back of a motor boat. I guess it hurt. The picture to the left is a view from our guest house.

One weird thing about Vang Vieng is that a lot of the restaurants have TVs showing episodes of the TV show Friends. It's pretty strange. However, I was quite pleased when I walked into a used book store and saw Family Guy playing.

More Luang Prabang

10/4/2006

This morning some of us woke up really early to watch the monks receive alms at about 6 am (see above). Basically people set up stations along the streets with sticky rice or other food that they plan to give to the monks. Then lines of monks would walk by holding pots into which people placed their food alms. This was the food that the monks would eat the rest of the day. After watching and participating in the ritual, I found a poster describing the do's and don'ts of morning alms. It turned out that we broke about half of the rules by talking and taking close-up flash photography, among other things. I imagine their quite used to this based on the large number of tourists in the town.

During the day I updated my blog and checked out more of Luang Prabang. I went to the Royal Palace Museum, which had been the palace of the king of Laos in Luang Prabang before the communists took over in the 1970's. There were some nice murals, swords, manuscripts, diplomatic gifts, thrones, etc. I'm not a big fan of museums, but this one wasn't too bad since it only took about 25 minutes to view everything. Later that day the whole group went to another wat and then had a de-briefing discussion about the first third of the trip. After the meeting I went with Emma and Michal to get a Khmu (Lao tribe) massage. Maybe it's just be, but I don't think massages have much of an effect after their done. It's good to figure that out over here where they're dirt cheap as opposed to in the US where they cost a fortune. The picture below is of me at some wat.

Day 3 of the River Trip to Luang Prabang

10/3/2006

Today was the final day on the river on our way to Luang Prabang. We left Pakbeng early in the morning and arrived in Luang Prabang around 2 pm. During the boat ride we stopped off at some caves that served some type of religious function and had a bunch of Buddha statues. One set of caves went pretty far back and thus was very dark, and I used the flash of my camera as a guide since I forgot my flashlight. The picture on the left is of the river viewed from one of the smaller caves. The boat ride was pretty similar to yesterday's, beautiful but repetitive scenery. I did finish a book called Another Quiet American, which was written by a Princeton graduate who went to Laos upon finishing college to work in the tourism office for 2 years. The author basically tells a bunch of his stories while in Laos, and it gives some interesting insights into Lao culture.

When we arrived in Luang Prabang, we checked into the guest house and just wandered around for a while. Luang Prabang is a peaceful and touristy town that is full of wats and restaurants. There were many different types of restaurants, which was great for all the group members who were sick of the sticky rice that is ubiquitous in Laos (I happen to like sticky rice, howeverr). We found a nice American style cafe called JoMa bakery, which would be a frequent stop for much of our group over the next two days. After lunch I walked around the town with Brendan and Richard. We felt obligated to check out a few of the wats and then went to a nice used book store to get some more reading materials. Definitely the most interesting part of Luang Prabang is the night market, which offers a bunch of nice handicrafts that are made by people in the villages and sold in the city market. I need to make up for my lack of gift giving to my family members over the past year(s), but I think I'll wait until Bangkok at the end of the trip to make purchases so that I don't have to lug them all around. The picture at the right is a view from Luang Prabang.