The following are in the order in which we visited each country.

Hong Kong

Macau

China (Guangzhou)

Vietnam (Motorbike license plate)

Cambodia

Thailand (Bangkok)

South Korea (Seoul)

Japan (Nara)

Indonesia

Singapore

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Here in South Korea it’s unfortunately just a boring Hyundai 4-door sedan. Sure, the driver drives like a maniac, but that’s no different than the US. It’s not nearly as fun and exciting as Vietnam — weaving in and out of traffic going the wrong way on the back of a motorbike. Or Thailand — going offroading sitting in the back of a truck bed with 8 other tourists. The following is primarily a picture blog showing the different taxi’s we’ve encountered by country.

One quick definiton: A tuk-tuk is the name most commonly given to these modes of transportation for hire and what I use to call a few of the following “Taxis”.

Southern China

The tuk-tuks in southern China make you feel like Robin from the old “Batman and Robin” TV show. “Holy Bill of Rights, Batman!”

Northern China – Beijing

The tuk-tuks in Beijing were slightly different. They were enclosed rather than open-air (most likely due to the cold weather). Unfortunately, I never had the opportunity to ride in one, but I’d imagine there’s no chance they’re actually warm inside.

Vietnam #1

The most ubiquitious form of “taxi” is the motorbike. While walking down the street the most common thing to hear is, “moto?”. Most of the time I believe these “taxis” are simply people with motorbikes looking to make a few extra bucks.

Vietnam #2

Also in Vietnam, particularly Saigon, are the bicycle rickshaws. These are great because they drive into the traffic as if they’re indestructible tanks. But the motorbike’s actually do stop for them, it’s rather impressive.

Cambodia

Cambodia gets the most versatile award for their tuk-tuks. They’ve taken a standard motorbike, added a little hardware on the back and then simply tow a very comfortable 4 to 5 seater compartment behind them. What’s great is that the compartments seem easy to remove and then you’ve got your regular motorbike back again.

Thailand

Thailand’s interesting form of a share taxi is called a “songthaew” – I’m still not certain I know how to pronounce this correctly. Thankfully they’re also referred to as a “baht bus”. They’re simply a pickup truck with two rows of seats.

If you have any other interesting Taxi transportation methods, leave a comment, I always enjoy learning about new ways to get around town!

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Two days ago we flew out of Southeast Asia only to find ourselves back in China, the land of staring.  Jason and I both found that we were sad to leave SE Asia, even more so than I would have thought.  We will never forget our first trip to Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand (yes, we plan on visiting these countries again due to the fact that there were many places that we never got to visit due to timing issues).  The cost of living in SE Asia is plenty of reason alone to make us want to come back, but discovering the other qualities that we were not anticipating were equally as amazing.  For the most part, these three countries could have been fairly interchangeable when it came down to it.  There wasn’t much of a middle class anywhere; there wasn’t much in between the major cities which were very developed to the families living in wooden shacks on farmland.  However, we were able to spend enough time in each country to notice that each country did have their own distinct flavor.

Vietnam

Out of the three SE Asian countries that we visited, Vietnam was our favorite.  Maybe it had to do with the fact that it was our first experience with a heavy tourist population, therefore there was English everywhere (which, coming from China, was a huge breath of fresh Vietnamese air).  Maybe it had to do with the fact that not only was there English everywhere, but the people were so used to tourists that the staring was almost non-existent.  The Vietnamese people seemed more open to helping us when we needed help, whereas some of the Chinese people took some time to warm up to us after we established the initial ‘smile and hello’ (they don’t encounter as many tourists, so it is completely understandable why they would be more curious and inquisitive).  Maybe it had to do with the fact that the food was completely amazing.  Or the fact that we attended two weddings and even stayed at the parents’ home of our new hotel manager friend.  I think it was all of the above.

Cambodia

Speaking of nice people, if I had to create an award for the nicest people on earth, so nice to the point that it was ridiculous, the Cambodian people would win hands down.  No contest.  I had heard from one of my friends’ boyfriends that the Cambodian people were the nicest people you’ll ever meet, and this became apparent immediately.  The Khmer (the Cambodian word for… Cambodian) people are genuinely nice and the children are the most smiley kids you will find anywhere.  Every smile you give will be met with an even bigger Khmer smile, and this goes for grown men as well, something that I found extremely rare in other countries.  If you are sitting outside of your hotel, the owners will light a mosquito coil at your feet just to make sure you don’t get bites.  They will serve you food from their own family’s dinner table and are extremely happy when you eat it.  They will take the day off of work to drive you around the city and buy you dinner just because you’re their guest.

Thailand

Unfortunately we were only in Thailand for 13 days due to stomach and Visa issues (clearly those two problems are meant to be experienced together) but it was clear from the second we got off our minibus to Koh Chang that this would be the most populated country of tourism we may ever visit.  I mean it wasn’t a big newsflash for us- everyone wants to visit or has visited Thailand, it’s the ultimate exotic beach getaway equipped with western food at every restaurant and “lady bars” to suit every hairy Caucasian male above the age of 50.  It seemed like there were more tourists than locals and there was virtually no need to learn any of the Thai language.  It was like being in a country that was built for tourists.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have anything against this unlike many other tourists.  I’m not one of those “get away from all the tourists” types and I enjoy being around other people who are doing the same thing.  The people of Thailand were also extremely friendly and welcoming, although I didn’t see as many kids as I did in Cambodia which made me sad, but if I had I’m sure they would have been just as smiley.

Random Quote of the Day: In Bangkok we met up with a friend (Jason, the cyclist traveling throughout Asia- What’s up, Jason?!) for 7-Eleven beers on the side of the road (classy) when a Thai prostitute who must have won the “Most Desperate Hooker” award grabbed every man in her sight in attempts to make some cash.  She then came up to Jason (my Jason) and attempted to seduce him.  After about thirty seconds of obvious rejection, Jason (the cyclist) saved the day by telling the woman, “Sweetie, we’ve only been together for 6 months, I don’t think I can handle the competition.”

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Sharon and I have now left Vietnam and are currently residing in the quiet beach town of Koh Kong, Cambodia. In this post I’ll wrap things up on Vietnam and reflect on our 5-weeks there.

Overall, we really enjoyed ourselves. It’s pretty cool to say that we traveled almost the entire country, entering their northern border and leaving on their southwest border. It’s also a place we’d like to return to. You can’t beat the prices, and there were a few places we skipped that we’d like to go back to. The highlights:

• Rode our first motorbike in Halong Bay on beautiful Cat Ba Island
• Took a boat tour where the crew turned into a boy band
• Found out what it meant to be in Vietnam too long
• Learned a ton about the culture
• Successfully crashed was invited to two Vietnamese weddings

As usual, making a list is how I’ll wrap things up.

Final random thoughts on Vietnam:

• They blatantly charge tourists more for things. The most blatant example I encountered was at a sandwich cart. The cart only makes 1 kind of sandwich and a lady bought one in front for me for $5,000 dong. I clearly saw the transaction. When it was my turn, the sandwiches were now $10,000 dong. Neither price is very expensive, but this happens with everything. If you go to the market to buy fruit, on some modes of transportation — if they think you’re a foreigner, you’re going to pay more.
• Sharon and I prefer to figure things out on our own and to not do tours. Unfortunately, with many of the hotels we stayed at, if we asked a question about doing something, their answer was almost always to put us on a tour. We did go on two very cool tours, but it was frustrating how everyone just wanted to put us on a tour rather than giving us the information to explore a place on our own.
• People spoke much more English than we thought they would. Compared to China, it was unbelievable how well and how often people spoke English.
• Almost every store sign has the full address on it. This makes getting around much easier when all you have to do is look at a store sign to find out what street and what city you’re in.
• Public buses do not seem as widely used as in China. Another comparison to China. In nearly every city we went to in China, we used the public bus to get around. In Vietnam, we rode the public bus only once. We enjoy taking the bus. The price is posted so we know we’re not paying tourist prices and in China, at least, they were very convenient.

For now, though, we say goodbye to Vietnam.

A great way to see the country, as a tip, would be to buy a motorbike in Hanoi and ride it all the way down to Ho Chi Minh City, where you would be able to sell it for nearly as much as you bought it I would presume. Perhaps this is how we’ll experience Vietnam on the next go around.

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Jason and I crashed two Vietnamese weddings during our 5 week stay in the lovely country.  We were technically invited to each wedding (not by the bride or groom, of course, that would actually be legit), but no invitation is really needed to attend these festivities.

City weddings and countryside weddings are two very different animals.  Whereas city weddings last for one fairly short evening, country weddings last for two days.  Our experience with the city wedding was more similar to a wedding you would see back in the States; it was held in a venue (a hotel) that provided wedding accommodations such as tables, chairs, management, catering, decorations, etc.  The main difference was the live six-part dance crew performances on stage during the entire wedding; performing everything from traditional Vietnamese dance to what looked like lindy hop.  There was an amazing 5 course meal and unlimited beer that kept appearing in your glass thanks to the ever so attentive catering staff.

The country wedding was quite a different story.  For one thing, I only made it to the first night.  The first party was just for the “family” which ended up being about eight packed tables, in addition to a full live band and karaoke.  The Vietnamese locals were so happy to have us foreigners there that they enthusiastically wanted to drink and dance with us the entire time.  We would cheers with a different person/table/police sheriff every few minutes.  We were some hot commodities, that was for sure.  The worst part was that the only drink being served was rice wine.  I can only compare it to a very, VERY strong version of Soju, the Korean rice wine.  The next day I proceeded to experience the worst hangover of my life that actually ended up lasting two days, so unfortunately I missed the second day festivities which involved over 1,000 guests.

Interesting Facts:

-In Vietnam, when a woman gets married she moves out of her parents’ home and into the home of her husband’s family.  Here, she dutifully spends the rest of her life serving her new family.  On the day of the wedding, the woman’s parents are known to shed many tears since they are basically saying good-bye to their daughter.  The new bride does not usually get to visit their parents’ homes after they marry.

-In Vietnam, people very rarely move out of their family’s homes.  If you’re a woman, you get married and move into your husband’s family’s house.  The newest wedded couple lives at the parents’ house until another child gets married, then the newest couple moves in.  If you’re the youngest son, you live at your parents’ house forever.

-When someone gets married, their family members invite just about everyone they know, thus creating a ridiculous number of attendees.  There are no formal invitations or RSVP’s which makes it easy for our new best Vietnamese friend, Rot, to crash many weddings for free food and booze.  “I’m Aunt Linda’s cousin’s son-in-law…”

Random Thought of the Day: I am writing from Phnom Penh, Cambodia- the third country we have hit so far.  Cambodia is a country that is extremely poor.  We were expecting a significant culture shock entering this new country, but instead we found ridiculously expensive cars and higher prices in Phnom Penh.  Granted, any major city is usually more modern than the rest of the country, but this particular city looked like it had reserved all of the money in Cambodia for its own mansions and brand new apartment buildings.  We were privileged enough to meet up with a friend’s cousin in Phnom Penh who showed us around the city.  We learned some staggering facts: Car taxes are outrageous.  Our new friend’s Lexus SUV cost approximately $200K, while his girlfriend’s Toyota Camry cost $60K.  Not to mention that the town was riddled with Lexus SUV’s and Toyotas (in fact we haven’t seen so many cars in a city since back at home).    Where are we?

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During our 5-weeks in Vietnam, Sharon and I picked up a good amount of knowledge about the Vietnamese culture. In this post, I’d like to share some of this information. The first few bullets center around things that are good to know as a tourist—information I would have loved to know before I got here! The second half are mostly random pieces we learned about Vietnamese culture.

Note: A lot of these observations are obvious generalities that aren’t true of everyone. Additionally, most of this information comes from one person, so it could just be his view of Vietnamese people. This post isn’t intended to offend, simply to impart some general information about Vietnamese culture.

Information that can be helpful as a tourist coming to Vietnam:

• An open hand shaken by your head means “no thanks” – The movement is similar to saying something is “So-so” in America, except the hand should be vertical instead of horizontal. Very useful to know for all of the solicitors you’ll receive while walking around.
• Holding your hands together at your heart, and bowing means “I don’t like it or want it, go away” – it’s very harsh. Again, as a last resort this could be used with a pushy solicitor.
• To be respectful to someone, shake their hand with two hands. When passing or receiving something (a cup, money, etc.) use two hands instead of one.
• Tourists are almost always charged more for things. Negotiating is recommended. We were told though that sellers are more receptive to bargain with women than men.
• They love US Dollars. In fact, nearly everything is quoted in US dollars. If you’re paying in Vietnamese Dong (yes, Vietnam’s currency is called “Dong”), you’re at the mercy of the vendor’s chosen exchange rate. This rate seems to vary quite a bit.

Other information about Vietnamese culture:

• Holding up the middle finger means nothing in Vietnam, but crossing your fingers (like we do when we say “good luck”) is like saying “F— You”.
• A great compliment to a Vietnamese woman (or man) is you look “fat and white”. This is equivalent in America to telling a woman that she looks “skinny and tan”.  The reason a woman likes to be fat?  It’s a sign that she has money and enough food to eat. Women like to be white because it means that they don’t work in the fields.
• Vietnamese people are infatuated with big noses and big eyes and will often have surgery to get them.
• The Vietnamese language is tonal – meaning depending on the way with which you say a word, the exact same word can have a completely different meaning. Example: The word “Ma” said flatly means “ghost”. “Ma” with your pitch rising means “cheek”. “Ma” with your pitch falling means “but”.
• 40% of people in Vietnam are considered tribal. There are over 30 different languages spoken among the different tribes.
• Women typically do not smoke or drink in public. We were told if you see a woman in a bar smoking, she is most likely a prostitute (or a tourist).
• In the typical married household, women do all of the cleaning, cooking, and taking care of the kids (and many times will have a job on top of this). On March 8^th every year, for one day, the roles are reversed and men will do the cooking and cleaning. On March 9^th, it’s back to normal.
• Vietnamese people have a tough time speaking English because Vietnamese is very throaty. English uses the tongue a lot at the front of the mouth. When Vietnamese people speak a lot of English their tongue will feel sore from doing so.

If you’ve got some good information about the Vietnamese culture I missed, let me know. I’m sure this is only the tip of the iceberg.

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From time-to-time, Sharon and I will be sharing some of the travel tips we’ve learned. Our first “tips post” discusses the science of packing our backpack.

A concern we had about traveling for an extended period of time was becoming annoyed with “living out of our backpacks”. I’m happy to report back that with some extensive trial-and-error, this is no longer much of a nuisance.

The key to the way we pack is that everything goes in a bag before going into our backpack. Essentially, nothing in my backpack is just stuffed into the pack by itself. Stuffing individual items leads to disorganization, inefficient use of space, and takes much longer to pack and unpack.

The best packing accessory we purchased were ITW’s Space Compressible Travel Roll Bags. They’re essentially large see-through compression “Ziploc” bags. They’re cheap and awesome! All of my clothes now fit into one large and one small bag – pants, shirts and jacket in the big bag and underwear and socks in the small bag. To use them, you roll-up the bag and while you do so, air is released from the bag out of the bottom, creating an air-tight bundle of clothing – it saves a ton of space. It also makes unpacking all of my clothes easy; I simply pull out two bags.

Another great packing accessory purchase was the Eagle Creek Pack-It Stuffer set. The largest one is a perfect place to store laundry and the other two I use to store some random smaller things – locks for our laptops, my snorkel gear, etc.

Sharon’s favorite purchase was Eagle Creek’s Koala Hanging Toiletry Kit. I bought a small, basic toiletry bag which works just fine, but I must admit, I do get jealous when Sharon just hangs up her toiletry bag in the bathroom.  It’s pretty darn convenient.

Not all of my packing related purchases worked out well.  Here are a couple of items I regretted packing and ended up shipping back to the states:

• Eagle Creek Travel Gear Pack-It Folder – I think this would be a great accessory if you were traveling with a regular suitcase for a week of business meetings where you needed each shirt to be crisp. For backpacking though, it was bulky and frankly a burden to fold my t-shirts and 1 collared shirt each time.
• Eagle Creek 2-Sided Packing Cube – I had the great idea to use this to store my workout clothes, underwear and socks, which it did just fine. But similarly to the Pack-It folder, it’s pretty bulky and didn’t fit nicely into my pack. Space is at a premium and unfortunately I didn’t think the cube saved space. It does make organization easier though.

In all, including my toiletry bag, I have 10 bags which go into my backpack- three of which rarely leave my bag. So, packing and unpacking essentially involves 7 bags. When they’re out of my bag, they feel like drawers–I can open, close and put them away. Most of them are see-through or are a different color so it’s easy to tell what’s inside.

If you have any packing tips you’d like to share, I’d love to hear them. We’re constantly striving to make it an easier process.

Note: All links above are Amazon affiliate links. If you like something we mentioned, we’d appreciate your support of using these links to purchase–we’ll get a small cut. Every little bit helps us keep our travel dreams going! Thanks

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Here are the top 9 indicators that you may have been in Vietnam for too long…

1. You think Pho is now boring (the staple Vietnamese noodle soup that once was a hot commodity to you in the States).  We can distinguish between bun, mi, bahn, and bo, and we can also name where certain foods originated from.
2. You no longer see your life flash before your eyes when you cross the street in Saigon or Hanoi.
3. You walk away from $5 restaurants.  If we’re going to eat at a restaurant that’s going to cost us $10 or more for the total bill (including a couple beers), it’s got to be something spectacular or at least cooked by Bobby Flay himself.
4. You’ve been to more than two Vietnamese weddings in a month.  FACT: We have attended two Vietnamese weddings in our one month stay here.  Weddings here do not include guest lists, name cards, or seating arrangements, so it’s normal for randoms to be invited, let alone a table full of whities if your relative runs a tourist business.
5. You find yourself using Vietnamese lingo.  Their favorite phrase is “same same”, which roughly means “the same as”.  They love pointing to me while saying “same same?” and then pointing to themselves, thinking that I am Vietnamese.  They also sell shirts on every block that say “Same Same”.
6. You don’t even think about singing karaoke on stage unless you know the lyrics by heart already and you have a dance performance to go with it (preferably you’re wearing a white disco suit).
7. You bought your first matching pajama set and now wear it all day long.
8. You no longer bother with learning Vietnamese because it’s obvious that there will be enough English to communicate efficiently.
9. You aim for consuming 1/4 of the amount of alcohol you can handle while hanging out with Vietnamese locals.  The reason for this is because they are so excited to drink with you that you end up drinking about double the amount that you think you’re drinking…

It’s pretty funny to think that because of these reasons, we will experience some culture shock when we go back to our motherland.  Fifteen dollars for dinner?  Preposterous!  For our health’s sake, and our dignity’s sake, it’s a good thing that we don’t eat fast food.  Just because it’s closer to SE Asia prices doesn’t mean we will eat it when we’re back home (but we will probably wear our matching pajamas).  The minute we start bargaining the price down at Safeway, however, please put us in our place.

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The Floating Bar portion of the tour deserves its own paragraph.  The “crazy uncle” character of the crew sat in a tiny floating circle equipped with a cooler of a vodka/orange soda drink.  Jason and I were the first ones in the water to swim to the floating bar, in which everyone then proceeded to drink cocktails in the ocean while the crazy uncle demonstrated his dirty mouth and tried to get us as drunk as possible.  His favorite phrase was “up your bum, don’t tell mum!” and shouted it as a cheers.  It was one of those moments in life where I frequently stopped to ask myself “where am I?  What’s going on?”  I couldn’t stop laughing.

Perhaps the most random thing that has happened to us has also been the most awesome.  The crazy uncle Floating Bartender invited about 7 of us foreigners to a wedding that night.  We dressed up in our one nice outfit (“nice outfit” is being used loosely- mine happened to be the same sundress I wore on the boat trip and Jason’s was his one extremely wrinkled button-up shirt) and ended up having the greatest time.  Good old Van and Minh, our newlywed besties.   They served us an amazing 5-course dinner complete with free, FREE unlimited beer that kept showing up in my glass somehow.  There was live stage entertainment where dancers performed different numbers during the entire dinner.  After the wedding, we enjoyed a night of VIP karaoke and bar hopping.

UPDATE: Due to the sheer awesomeness of our hotel owner in Dalat, Vietnam, we have decided to extend our stay in Vietnam and attend yet another Vietnamese wedding.  Our new hotel owner friend, Rot, is a flamboyant man who makes me laugh like no other, is obsessed with the song “Feliz Navidad”, has sweet dance moves, and loves to sing “My Heart Will Go On” by Celine Dion at any given moment.  He has invited us to his brother’s wedding on January 2.  The awesome part about this wedding is that it will take place in the countryside in his little rural village.  It will last two days, there will be more free food and unlimited beer, we are staying at his family’s house for free, and the craziest part is that there will be over one thousand people in attendance- including us silly Americans.  This kind of stuff just doesn’t happen in America.

Random Thought of the Day: Families in some tiny rural Vietnamese villages buy their daughters’ husbands.  You can buy one for two buffalo, which is roughly equivalent to $40 USD, and then they basically become slaves while the women call the shots in the household.  While this idea may ignite excitement in some women at first, it’s actually quite scary.  Some boys are bought at the age of 14, 15 or 16 and are obligated to marry whoever their parents get the most valuable items/money from.

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One thing I do very well as a traveler is observe the way people dress in different countries.  There is nothing more entertaining for me than to examine the area for interesting fashion choices; by interesting, I mean a woman doing manual labor in clear stripper heels or a man wearing a shirt that says “I touch nature”, and everything in between.

Given the cities that we have visited so far (within Hong Kong, China and Vietnam), if I were to sum up the women’s clothing in one sentence, it would have to be this: If clothing from the 1990’s had a fling with children’s clothing, their love child would be exactly what women wear in Asia in the year 2009.

Now although this may come off as derogatory towards Asia, it is not meant to be.  These are just a silly American’s observations about something different. I’m sure if a woman who had grown up in Vietnam booked airline tickets to the States and saw what we wear in America, they would also have many things to contrast.  I can say that one thing they would most definitely comment on is how American women dress like hoochie mamas.  The reason I know this is because they seem to think I am the mayor of Hoochietown.  Sometimes I am a recipient of the Asian Stank Eye (ASE, as I will coin from now on) when I go out in public in a simple tank top.

You might have noticed that I am very fond of lists.  Lists can illustrate my point much better than writing an essay about it, so here is my list of the most common fashion gems I have seen so far:

1. Bejeweled, bedazzled, rhinestoned, colorful scrunchies and hair clips. Women here LOVE their hair pieces.  If you walk down any street in China there will be multiple women pushing carts full of gawdy hair pieces and wonderfully 80’s scrunchies for sale.  Scrunchies here are the equivalent of regular hairties in America-EVERYONE wears them.  Also, do you remember those colorful hairties that you wore in elementary school that had the little plastic dice, hello kitty, flowers, jewels, or beads at the ends?  Yeah, they’re all around here as well.
2. Heels double as dress shoes as well as athletic gear. The best is seeing women wearing skirts and stilettos while riding their bicycles and hiking in caves.
3. “Engrish” phrases on t-shirts are a great way to pass the time and get a good laugh.  “Engrish” is the loving term that was coined for “Asian English” in which the phrases or words from an Asian language get lost in translation to English, so the end result is an often hilarious sentence.  For a good time, visit Engrish.Com.
4. Pajamas. Many women go about their daily business or sell their products in public wearing matching pajama sets.  During the day.  Why?  And by why, I mean why can’t I do that in America?
5. Mickey Mouse. You’ll find him on a lot of clothing, at least in China.  It doesn’t stop at Mickey Mouse, either.  Many strange cartoon characters live on jackets and shirts of children and adults alike.
6. Socks with EVERYTHING.  My personal favorite.  Women wear socks with heels, open toed boots, sandals, you name it.  And by “socks”, I mean anything from ankle-high pantyhose to regular white athletic socks.  I’ve even seen women wearing open-toed heels with ankle-high pantyhose pulled over their pants…  It’s wonderful.

The more places we visit, the more I begin to notice how different people dress in certain areas.  What will be interesting, however, is to see how people dress here in Southeast Asia during the summer.  Unfortunately I will not be here during the summer to experience the agonizing, tropical, wet, excruciatingly muggy heat.  The hoochie mama clothes have got to come out sometime, right?

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