...on a shoestring

We are in Saigon. A city and country we both became a little timid when thinking about coming here. Vietnam has always held a truly 'foreign' mystic to us, Corey put it as a 'dark secret' yesterday which I feel is exactly right. Being here, however, has proven to be so far from dark in every way. We get smiled at wherever we go, everyone is dressed in fantastic colours and all with traditional rice farmer cone hats, people are having fun, joking, and best of all, they take 1 1/2 hours for lunch so they can sit together with co-workers and friends and enjoy a meal on kids' plastic patio sets drinking iced coffee and eating Pho.

We visited the War Remnants Museum yesterday and that painted a very different picture of Vietnam. The horror this country went through 40 years ago is unimaginable. The pictures displayed were nauseating, some impossible for me to look at for more than a split second without crying. I can't go into detail about what some of these photographs showed without feeling sick and desparatly sad. To think that this country is actually as happy as it is when that went on 40 shorts years ago is remarkable. When I was in Cambodia 7 years ago I remember feeling that the people still hadn't gotten past Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge rein, they were still sad and hurt from the torture that went on in the 70's. Here, it seems, they're rebuilding. You still have a lot of limb-less citizens, and Vietnamese in their 30's with deforamalities from being born in the time of Agent Orange, but most are supporting themselves by selling books (Corey bought a book from an armless man yesterday, after shaking his...stump...it was quite a sight) or working in cafes, NOT begging on the side of the road.

One topic that got Corey and I talking last night as we sat on the corner of two busy streets (in a kids plastic patio set) was children working. At first, a typical Canadian (euro/US/Aussie/etc) would jump up and say "No, child 'labor' is wrong in every form". But what if it meant eating and not living on the cruel Saigon street picking through garbages or stealing foreign wallets? There was a little guy last night, at around 10 pm, stood out in front of the bar, in the middle of the street, and put on a performance with fire. He put gasoline in his mouth, lit a torch on fire, and blew fire balls into the sky, then extinguished the torches with his mouth. He was so organized and good at what he did, he collected money from nearly every tourist sitting there watching. Then a little girl came up selling flower, tissue, and gum. She went straight to Corey with her puppy eyes (smart girl) and played games with him. The straw that broke him was she offered to play 5 paper-rock-scissors games with him (his weakness) and if she lost, he would get the rose for free. He won, bought the rose for me anyways, and she skipped off as happy as could be. During the game, Corey asked where her mom was and she replied simply that she 'went away' but her 'papa was across the street'. Does this mean her mom died? She's a prostitute? She was forced to take a job elsewhere in Vietnam to support her husband and daughter? No one knows, and I feel no one can judge her dad for getting her to 'pray' on tourists with her cuteness to sell roses to them. She was well fed and seemed....happy, actually happy. I think she'll be so smart by the time she's our age, she'll be running the biggest florist in the world, you'll see.

We haven't written in a while! We left Ubud almost 2 weeks ago and randomly chose to go to Lombok island. We boarded the ferry @ 3pm, left at 4pm, and finally arrived in Lembar harbour on Lombok island at around 10pm. We were THE ONLY while travelers on the ferry, I guess most are smart enough to catch an early ferry so that they dont arrive well after dark!
The harbour on Lombok is well away from where we wanted to go, there isn't even a place to stay around that area, so we were more or less forced to take the only minibus there. We haggled him down from 250,000 ($30) to 140,000 ($18) by lying to him and telling him it was the only money we had. To our 'great sucess' it worked and off we were. We arrived in Sengigi, a beach 'town' 1/2 way up the island, we had little trouble finding a room (only had to ask three different places! not bad). When we woke up we had some breakfast and there we were approached by possibly the creepiest local we've met yet on this trip. He sat right down on our patio and spoke with us about his French ex-girlfriend and how all he wants is a western girl. About how many couples travel together and breakup on their trip. About how he wanted us to come to his house where he'd make us dinner...meet his family....and then after we managed to ditch him, he found us way down the beach, stripped down to his tiny underpants, and jumped in the ocean with us. We left Sengigi the next day @ 8am sharp.

The Gilli island were another story. They were as close to 'paradise' as I have ever seen....and I've been to Koh Phi Phi and as I type this I'm sitting in Bali...so I mean it when I say that island was something else. There are no cars, motorbikes, or stray dogs on Gilli Trawangan. It is 'patrolled' by sharks, manta rays, and sea turtles. It has the clearest water I have ever witnessed in my entire life, and the most beautiful sand. We stayed 5 nights and it was very hard to leave. The restaurants are some of the best I've ever had and when you're sitting on the beach, listening to awesome music, drinking a fantastic $0.70 gin and sprite, eating fresh sushi...life is good.

And now we're in Kuta, the Las Vegas of southeast asia. It's loud and polluted and abrasive, but beautiful and a lot of fun. We're here for another 3 nights and then off to Malaysia! (If they allow me on the plane as my ticket reads Jennie McMartin, not Jennie Backman like my passport says...)

jennie.
xo.

We said 'goodbye' to our beautiful, clean, comfortable room at Villa Jaya in Lovina, Bali and hired a local guide to take us to Ubud. We stopped in Candikuning where Corey waterskiied in an extinct volcano, and fed some monkeys hanging on the side of the highway. We arrived in Ubud lastnight and have been exploring around this lush, definitly overstuffed, city. We went shopping lastnight and bought some very cool things, we also decided to try the local drink, Arak Sangria. Rice wine, rice whiskey, soda water, orange juice and fruit sit fermenting in a pitcher, then it's served. After one sip i swore I was drunk. Blah. Anyways needless to say we shopped some more after our Arak sangria and I bought a comforter! Totally the most practical thing to buy in Bali right?? It is beautiful, and Corey nearly topped my 'crazy-thing-to-buy' status when he started haggling for a full size bongo drum (no success though). We are staying in definitely the most interesting place, it's impossible to explain so I will upload photos onto Picasa soon.
People are VERY money hungry here which is a downfall and tends to put you in a bitter mood when you're asked if you 'want transport??' 100 time in 100 steps. The Balinese are, however, fantastic if their profession has nothing to do with tourism. The unique style of architecture, music, and art is VERY evident here.
j.

Post guesthouse-kicking-out-of we booked a trip, $35 each, that would take us to Mount Bromo, an active Volcano, stay the night, get free breakfast, take the bus to the ferry, catch the ferry, and minibus-it to Lovina, north Bali. In theory, this seemed freaking fantastic. 7am Corey wakes up on departure day with what he describes as a knife jabbing into his gut. This gets worse as we get into the 1949 Mitsubishi van that is to take us to the volcano. As Corey rolls around in the back of the van in extreme pain, I'm blowing my nose and trying to release the pressure in my ears due to a nasty headcold. This trip, in the back of an unconditioned falling apart van, takes us...get this...13 ^&%**&% hours and I had to finally yell at the driver to stop so I could pee.
We FINALLY get to a shack in the town of Probolingo at the base of the mountain where the tell us we'll be staying in adifferent guesthouse than the one we booked. Awsome. We get to our very uncool guesthouse, sleep, only to be woken up to knocking at 2:57am. The knocking lasted an hour until we got up and were told we would be dropped off and left on our own as we chose not to book the additional tour to the viewpoint (if I'm going to a volcano, I'd rather stand beside the damn thing than at a viewpoint far away, thank you). So there Corey and I were...in the dark as it's 4am, hiking on an unmarked path, possibly towards a volcano, alone.
We made it to where people were (only locals as EVERY other white person went to the viewpoint, suckers). We watched the sun come up and hiked back.
Our bus to Bali was fine, we had our German friends back with us, and the ferry to Bali was pleasant. Then another minibus...
We were thrown out of the big coach bus that brought us to Bali as we, again, were the ONLY ones going to Lovina. We were ushered into another falling apart van, jumped in the front seats, and in steps the driver. I look over and there, staring me in the face, only 2 feet away, a goiter on his neck the size of a papaya. I look over at Corey with terror and ask "What am I going to do? WHAT AM I GOING TO DO!", of course all he does is laugh for about 5 minutes.
Anyways, we head across Bali at 8pm with goiter-driver and 20 other locals and make it to our slice of heaven where we are now. The end.

Yesterday morning we visited Borobodour and Prambanan, both religious temples dating back to the 10th century. Borobodour is a Buddhist site, a huge complex of reliefs and Buddha statues with unreal views of the jungle below. Prambanan is a Hindu site with 5 separate towers representing gods from the Hindu religion. Both beautiful, both awe inspiring. Thanks to both our visits to the sites and our white skin, we ended up posing with what seems like 100 children and are in a few thousand other family snap shots.
When we got back from our tour we were told we had to pack our goods and leave as our guest house had a group coming that night. In 40 degree weather and after waking up @ 4am, packing all of your belongings and going out to look for a room isn't my kind of fun. But there we were. with our bags, marching around Yogyakarta looking for a room for about an hour as it's Ramadan and every one of the 222,000,000 people who live in Indonesia are here for their holidays.
We found a place, it's $5/night which yes it cheap, but it should be about $0.80 during the regular season. It is a prison cell with no bathroom, and the attached 'bathroom' has a tiled tub with a bucket, and a hole in the ground. The tub is filled with water, the bucket is used to 'shower' yourself, and the hole is the toilet. It smells of sewage and cigarettes. This adventure has its amusing days.
Tonight we have an 'upgraded' room with a bathroom and a bed that will fit the both of us. We have signed up for a silver making course tonight and tomorrow we're off to see an active volcano and then day after...Bali, the #1 best voted island on this planet we call earth. Thank. You.
j.
xo.