marvinwkuo

Sep 29 2012

The Vietnam Vomit Express

Sigh, I guess it’s my turn to post. If you can’t figure out who it is from that…well then you obviously have not been reading these blog posts! Thanks for nothing.

We’re currently in Vang Vieng, Laos, which is backpackers’ haven because of inebriated tubing down the Nam Song River, stopping along various bars to drink cheap beer and in the very recent past, shroom/happy shakes. There’s been a lot of government crackdown on the bars operating along the rivers, particularly with respect to the drugs, since alcohol/drugs + river tubing = 7 deaths in the last 7 months. All very recent regulations.

Anyway, VV is not the subject of this post. Just some context as to why I am here blogging instead of exploring the extremely beautiful outdoors here in VV…which is that Marvin is sick like a dog AGAIN. Unlucky guy. But the big winner is YOU, since now I have some time to write about the rest of our time in Vietnam.

(Dan) Nha Trang-Levine
It was going to be hard to top Dalat, which I must reiterate is a wonderful place to visit. (Wow, I must be getting old if I’m using words like “wonderful” and shit. What I meant was, DALAT WAS PRETTY SWEET. CANYONS & WATERFALLS, SO SICK BRAH.)
I’d just like to remind you that water is strong and here, it is going straight at my nuts with a vengeance.

Nha Trang was mostly uneventful because it’s overtouristed. Russians seem to visit as all the signs & menus had Russian on it. The usual English/Aussie crowd was around; met some nice ones at a bar one night. Apparently San Francisco is a very popular and likable city for Europeans.

(Oh boy, I know I dislike blogging since I just took an internet break from this oh-so-difficult task…

…and I’m going to take another one)

Okay, where were we. Nha Trang boasts the “longest cable car” in the world. I guess it was a pretty long ride; 20+ minutes on a gondola over the ocean to an island resort. On this island is the Vinpearl Resort, AND WATERPARK. We had only planned on going on the gondola and not the waterpark, but the gondola by itself was friggin expensive ($20) and going into the park was an additional $5, so we said fuck it, we’re going to a goddamn waterpark in Vietnam.
On the way to the gondola. An insanely heat-impervious local. SERIOUSLY!!??!?!??

Well, the weather was great which made for a really nice gondola ride.
Some guy was coughing the whole time…yay germs in an enclosed box in the sky.
Another view from the gondola. See the screaming skull face in the clouds? Maybe our stomach were cursed.

The Vinpearl Waterpark has a few roller coasters, an indoor game area, a shopping area, various street performances (poor chained up monkeys) and of course, a water park area with a very nice beach. But it all felt weird because the park had so few people. Ghost park.
Going up their mini roller coaster thingy. You control the speed with the hand brake. Unfortunately, this meant that you could get stuck going slowwwww behind old people or screaming girls going 5mph. Zzzzzzzzz
They had an aquarium. I like toitles.
Sun was starting to go down
NIGHTMARES…aka entrance into big arcade with old games, but all free. Many broken cabinets. Try playing SF with a broken joystick and 4 buttons.
The towers that support the gondola light up at night. So romantic
Insert random food pic. Nem nuong! So good! Except I had to wrap it myself. Definitely prefer someone doing the work for me so I can pig out faster.

Well throughout the day, Marvin was feeling progressively worse. This would be the first time he got food poisoning – eventually I would also get some form of sickness the following day. After the waterpark, we went back to the hotel and he proceeded to ptfo until the next day – probably slept around 12 hours.

My sick time came the next day. My stomach is almost always iffy, but something I ate was making me feel worse than normal: nauseas and weak. Well we were in a shopping center and for a while I was willing the vomit down, but I would not win that war. We were taking a long break in the food court when finally my stomach erupted like the Chinese riots. “Play time is over! I am going to fuck everything up right now!” I tried to walk what seemed like a mile to the bathroom – and by try I mean 3 steps – before I turned around and went to the nearest garbage can. I’m grateful it was a big trash can with a rotating lid. Fasted puke of my life.

[Hm, cafe owner is now full screen skyping with his wife and their kids are play fighting. OH what?! There’s another man now! What is going on…whose kids are these??]

Yup, that was it for Nha Trang. We’d book a sleeper train from Nha Trang to Da Nang, with our destination being the small, ancient town Hoi An (just south of Da Nang).
Oh this was not fun with a rebellious stomach. Eventually I vomited again in the train bathroom sink. I stood around for about 20 minutes thinking about it before I yak’d. Also saw some other girl puke too. Partners in puking. Shoulda said something.

After the overnighter on the train, we’re now in…

Hoi An
…turned out to be a really cool area. There’s an old historic town area to walk around, with lots of restaurants, culture, and street life. The beach was also a 10-min bike ride. Lots of relax time here, so not many interesting stories. Instead, pictures:
Small bridge with some colorful lanterns.
Cua Dai (sp) beach. Pretty nice.
One of the many bridges in Hoi An. Haven’t forgotten about the fob poses.
Lit up at night. LOVELY AIN’T IT
Colorful lamp store. You know lamp?
Lots of mini wax food models for sale
Finally, we get a desire for hamburgers & fries. Tasted soooo undeservingly good.

The most exciting thing we did was a motorcycle tour around rural Hoi An. Our rides:
WWII-age Russian military bikes.

Shit was really fun. The bikes had 4 gears, kick start, and stalled as often as possible. And they recommend that you do not kick start your bike while you are on it since there is this metal rack thing near the back wheel that will own your ankle & calf if you do, so every time you stall you have to get off the bike to start. Overall, really really fun riding in the mud, through rural areas, and in crazy Vietnam traffic. Marvin named his bike Boris. Mine was Olga. Don’t ask. Some pictures from our ride:
Ducksss. They waddle through the rice paddies eating something from the ground and quack a lot.
Swallow farm for harvesting bird’s nest. They play swallow sounds from a speaker to attract more swallows. Apparently it’s more profitable to turn bird’s nest into an energy drink, as you use much less bird’s nest than the traditional thing.
Not even from our bike ride. Whatever. Sunset, boom.
Old Vietnamese lady after a sketchy bridge. She was really happy to see the blonde white people, hugging and kissing them. Not so much other Asians…bitch. Another funny thing is that our English tour guide said she makes her own perfume. Turns out this “perfume” was just white flower oil type stuff (pain relief, sinus decongestant). “Lovely perfume, ain’t it?” – silly English man.
Hoi An chicken rice after the ride. Delicious.

Well, the damn cafe owner turned off the A/C so I guess I’m done here! He must have caught me looking at his skype. Hanoi and maybe Luang Prabang, Laos next.

-jeboody

Sep 19 2012

1 Comment

Travel

EXTREME! Dalat.

MaRrRrRffin here. After HCMC, we were off to Dalat. We didn’t know what to expect. We just knew you do outdoorsy stuff there and it was a much smaller town. We were pleasantly surprised when we got there. It was much cooler which was greatly appreciated cause I had been sweating my ass off in Saigon. It was a lot less busy, a lot less honking, and had a very European feel to it. All the buildings, fountains, and landscaped parks had French influence. They even had a mini Eiffel Tower. Other than the one guy on a motobike asking “you want massage?”, it did not feel like we were in Vietnam. To make things better, we stayed at awesome hotel.

We were greeted by Mrs. Dung and this adorable little girl named Cherry at Dreams Hotel. This little girl instantly won Jeboody’s heart and he wouldn’t stop talking about her. Pedobear style. Jk, she was cute. The best part of staying at this hotel was the bomb breakfast. We had eggs, cheese, fresh fruit, baguettes, strawberry jam (strawberries are a local thing in Dalat), and freakin bacon. We tow that bacon up. Anyways on to our adventure.

We signed up to do some canyoning in Dalat. Oh man was it fun and terrifying. Our trip involved rappelling down 3 cliff/waterfalls, 1 waterfall slide, and a free jump. Let me say, going down those waterfalls was not easy. I thought since I had a little rock climbing experience that it would be a piece of cake. Wrong. The rocks are slippery. There’s water going everywhere and hitting everything. You don’t really feel that secure on that damn thing. Jeboody was slip sliding everywhere. You can see his injury in the picture above.

Between the rappelling, we first stopped at a waterfall slide. There were a couple for us to try. First one, we slid on our backs feet first. The other, we slid on our back head first. I made the mistake of sliding down head first on my stomach but I came out unscathed. I can’t say the same about Jeboody. He got owned hard on both slides. ITB. Thats all I’m going to say about that. Next non-rappelling activity was the free jump.

The free jump is really where we both faced our fears. There were two jumps we could do. One was 6m and the other was 10m. I’ve jumped off docks into the water and higher diving boards before but this felt so different. There just seemed like there was so much more potential to get injured jumping off a cliff. The worst was the 10m. It wasn’t necessarily the height. It was high and I was scared of it but it was the fact that I had to clear the the 6m jumping area to land safely in the water. Our guide had to show me the way before I grew a pair and made the leap.

Anyways, here’s the pics!

Hiking down to the waterfall

About to get OWNED! itb.

Biggest waterfall we rappelled down

free jump area

which way to the gun show???

“The Washing Machine”

Trying to do upside down pose

swag?

Tagged adventure, asia, backpack, canyoning, dalat, se Asia, southeast asia, travel, vietnam, waterfall

Sep 14 2012

5 Comments

Travel

Hello, motobike?…psst you want lady?

jeboody here. Well, it’s been a while since one of us posted. I’ve lost track of time here in SE Asia so I don’t really know how many days we were in Ho Chi Minh City aka HCMC – roughly less than a week. A good amount of stuff happened there so hope you like reading, suckazzzz!

From PP to HCMC
So it was up to me to choose our bus company to HCMC. After reading some reviews, but mostly after seeing a shiny new bus by Sapaco Co on the street, I went with Sapaco. Big mistake. We got an old bus with less than desirable service – damn Vietnamese bus company. Mekong Express, a Cambodian company, would have probably been much better, as they are known for their service. So if any of you ever take a bus from PP->;;HCMC, go with Mekong Express!

I was stuck behind this. He eventually reclined his seat so I could get a better view…what a thoughtful guy.

Well the bus ride was super shitty. It was hot, cramped, and it took forever since we had to spend a good amount of time at the border to go through immigration. There were some interesting sights though…
Our bus got on a ferry to cross a river (Mekong river?). Pretty interesting, as a bunch of vendors ALSO got on the ferry and were hawking at everyone.

Another view from the ferry. Nice day.

SE Asian bus companies have millions of affiliated rest stops. This dog would not stop looking sad.

Closeup. So sad 😦

“Good story, jeboody”. Moving on…

Braanhhh!!! Brannhhbanhh brannhranbrnan bhrnabhhhh Brrrannhhhh!!!
PP was pretty fun but we were definitely looking forward to a bigger city. Hello, Saigon, city of the motobikes & honking. It’s pretty impressive just how many motobikes there are, and even more impressive how much everyone honks here. It’s really quite funny – I’m pretty sure every bus I’ve ridden in Vietnam, the bus driver is honking non-stop at anything and everything. Some of the vans/busses have clown car horns…no lie.

We stayed in District 1 in the tourist area. Shit tons of Europeans, and mostly young ones (yayyy I feel old). It was basically like the Khao San of Saigon. Nothing against that, but it’s not really the experience I like when I’m traveling (jk fuck them!!).
Sitting on the sidewalk and drinking was really popular in the tourist area, and in general all of Vietnam.

Well, we spent the vast majority of our time in HCMC exploring the various districts, looking for food, and getting massages. Did some culture stuff aka museums blahblah. Oh, the massages. That’s the only interesting part worth retelling- the food is at the bottom in pictures.

Touch me down there
Justtt kidding, that did not happen. Well, maybe by accident (there may have been an incidental elbow brushing for Marvin). Anyway, it must have been that we decided that we deserved massages after walking and eating around all day (Arghh….such fatties). We tried to find a massage place near our hostel, but all the “massage” places in the tourist area have scantily clad girls making googly eyes…with their big, exposed eyes can’t stop staring…ahem, so we skipped those. Can’t a bro just get a shoulder rub?? Srsly now.

Oh, side story about sex hawkers. (Sorry for the explicitness, mom & dad, and please don’t talk to me about it when I go home). They come in a couple varieties.

Boys on bikes. Guys ride around on bikes making this metallic chka chka chka chka sound with this device in their hand. I read that one of the services they perform is a legit massage right where you are. I don’t believe this, as every one of them offered a lady massage. I also read that they also offer gay sex in your hotel room. shrug

Old men on motobikes. They allwaaysss start out with the innocent taxi solicitation, “Motobike?” However, it soon evolves into “You want lady? Lady massage?” or “You want boom boom? Pretty girls!” These guys are pretty funny, because they say things like, “They suck yo dick!” (all while making the bj hand gesture) or “You go look! You no like you no fuck!” Well, that’s just vulgar. Boom boom only plz.

Ladies on motobikes. These are the most interesting. The driver is usually a ladyboy (we think), and the passenger is a girl – a sample of the goods, I suppose. These duos are the most relentless. Basically, the driver does all the talking and the passenger just sits & smiles. They say all kinds of shit, and it gets vulgar fast which then gets slightly uncomfortable. The first couple of times we got solicited, it was hard to ignore them. Because basically they drive RIGHT up to us and you hear a deep, gruff voice saying, “YOU WANT MASSAAAGEEEE?” but it’s a lady talking to us…I’m so confused, I want to ignore you but I cannnnn’ttttttt it’s too funny. And when I say they drive RIGHT up to us, I’m not exaggerating; they literally will drive up on the sidewalk and cut off our walking path. All with a smile on their face. It’s so funny (yet sad/creepy at the same time).

Street ho’s. Yep, the classic solicitation from a lady chillin on the street. They aren’t dressed up at all so it was surprising to hear her ask us. First they offered a massage, then it became “boom boom” and then – for the first time we heard it- “make love”. I’m bringing “boom boom” back to America, watch out!

Back to our search for a legitimate massage. We gave up on our area for a massage and went with a recommendation from a friend of a friend. A legit place, finally! Well, looking back, we should have realized something was going to be unusual about our massage since the second our masseuses entered there was nonstop giggling. Basically, they flirted/teased us nonstop. Mine was the shy but protective girl, and Marvin’s was more direct & aggressive; anytime Marvin’s tried to touch me, mine would defend me. Bad cop good cop act? Keep in mind this is a public room with other customers in there. Anyway, let me try to recount what they did to us…
-Many “i love you’s” (is that proper syntax), in various languages
-giggling. oh man, so much giggling
-tickling
-staring (a la tranimal)
-a lot of nipple pinching
-chest grabbing
-pulling down of shorts
-put a hot stone deep in Marvin’s butt crack. shit is hot
-ear grabbing
-making me poke marvin & vice versa
-some other masseuse started staring since there was a lot of commotion
-the massages here involve a lot of stepping on and using knees on the back. So they’re basically straddling us except we’re face down. It was…interesting.
-hahaha, oh yeah, Marvin’s did not believe his name was “Marvin”.

Well, I’m glad my glasses were taken off right from the start, since I probably would have been a lot less receptive to all this if I could see properly. Yes, I’m mean.

Marvin would later find out from some expats he met that they had similar experiences (the nipple pinching) and that we basically got subtly (or not) solicited for boom boom. Well now it all makes sense. We just thought they were trying to get more tip. Ha, we didn’t get the hint so suck on that massage lady! Oh wait…nevermind, don’t do that.

We actually did find some good massage places, but that’s not really interesting to talk about now is it.

Saigon salons
So the last thing we wanted to try was a haircut/shampoo/head massage combo. Well, we didn’t really need haircuts so we just went to try & find a place to get a shampoo. For those of you who have gotten haircuts in Asia, you know that the shampoos are pretty damn awesome with the massage…so stop judging! I just want my hair did.

Another interesting thing about Vietnam is that many salons do not actually have haircuts; they are just fronts for a massage place and a hostess bar. They have VIP rooms where you can watch TV, hang out with whatever girl you pick, and even ask her to go get you food. According to the internet, there are also many salons where you can get some extra services as well, but C’MON GUYS we’re not about that, okay?? That’s for all the old white males we see in SE Asia.

We walked by some salons and sure enough, there are a bunch of young ladies in skimpyish clothing hollering. After doing some research, we find out that, actually, these are legit places and there’s no hanky panky going on. Sounds good to us pure & wholesome boys! Unfortunately, by the time we left our hotel, they closed. It was like 10pm too – very surprising, but another sign that these places offer legitimate services. We walked around anyway and luckily enough, managed to find one that was still open. Sweet! Hair wash/massage is on!

90 minutes pass, and we walked away fairly disappointed. These girls had no idea what they were doing. The hairwash was all scratch, zero massage. Plus, there was a pimple near my hairline so she was scratching the shit out of it. Ouch. I did manage to get this picture though:
Almost every massage includes cucumbers

Our “masseuses” could not speak English at all, so that didn’t help at all. Well, after the mediocre shampoo, we were lead upstairs to what I was assuming was the body massage portion. Once we got upstairs, though, we were put into separate rooms. Uh oh. I conferred with Marvin about what we should do, and neither of us really knew. Thankfully, despite our worrying, nothing happened. It was pretty awkward since we couldn’t communicate with our masseuses at all, so it was just a crappy silent massage in a tiny ass room. At least I got some winter melon tea out of it.

Well, I’m tired of recalling shit that happened last week, so that’s it for now. On to the picturessszzzszzz

HCMC illustrated

Hu Tieu something. Decent…too bad I don’t like liver.

Signal21 had some beef hotpot. Sour.

Lotus flower salad. Tasty

Enjoying some street sinh to (fruit shake) on the sidewalk. I had a trwaeerbrrrr[sic]-banana shake; Marvin got an aberrrrrrrcado[sic]-durian shake. First time trying durian and god, I do not like durian. I only had 2 sips and my farts/poo were mad smelly (as if they needed a boost in that department). Oh heeyyyy ladiessss

Saigon, mecca of fashion collabs

From the roof of Diamond Plaza

Banh xeo

Xoi ga. Delicious fried onion bits.

Bun thit nuong. Omg the pork was fucking amazing.

Bombass pho @ Pho Le

Caught in the act. @ Com Tam Moc

People throwing money out their window. WHY??? Someone please tell me.

War vet was our tour guide @ Cu Chi Tunnels. I am so glad I brought my headphones. Telling somber stories nonstop. I know it’s a sad situation but still…

Shrimp dish at Com Nieu SaiGon. DELICIOUS.

The claypot rice @ Com Nieu SaiGon

Really tasty banh mi, forgot name of place.

Ah, love bakeries. Ate so much stuff from here.

They love their tinyass stools. At a random com tam place…mediocre.

Visited the Mekong Delta

Shot from our boat

Snake wine

Rice paddy hats aw yeah

In a tunnel @ Cu Chi Tunnels. They are ridiculously narrow and confined.

Aug 31 2012

Fist Pumpin’ in Snookyville

Nah, we’ve been taking it easy here in Sihanoukville AKA Snookyville. We didn’t know this place existed a couple weeks ago. We were told that it was a nice beach so we thought it would be a good change in pace. Also, jeboody just wants to show off his guns on the beach. The Khmer girls love him btw.

I am really enjoying my time at Otres Beach. It has a very laid back vibe. There aren’t a ton of hawkers around asking you to buy stuff like the other beaches and the rest of Cambodia. We’re staying in a $10/night bungalow which is about 20-30 feet from the water. It’s a very simple little hut. No AC. Mosquito net around our bed. Shared bathrooms. It has a camping feel to it, where you can hear everything that is going on around you. I’m loving it. Jeboody, on the other hand, is completely out of his comfort zone.

A lot of people that we have met around here have been here for at least a couple weeks, many a lot longer. It’s a good break from the bustling cities but it is still a developing town. There is definitely potential here for it to be a real tourist destination. Maybe not like south Thailand but it isn’t bad that’s for sure. For now, at least at Otres beach, it is quiet, clean, and just chill. People lounge around the beach during the day and then all gather in one bar at night to have a few beers or pass around one, two, or three joints. I can see the appeal of this lifestyle but we needed a little more adventure!

We kayaked to a small island from the beach to do some snorkeling.

Fob face fail

Right now, we’re just chilling in a bar on the beach. Probably do a little standup paddle boarding after lunch. Tomorrow, some island hopping. Then off to Phnom Penh for a couple days where we will see the Killing Fields and S-21 prison. Not exactly sure what to do other than those two things. (probably some Street Fight against the locals). Afterwards, Vietnam!

Island we kayaked to

View from our bungalow

PS- sorry for the water spots!

Tagged adventure, asia, beach, cambodia, otres, phnom penh, se Asia, serendipity, sihanoukville, southeast asia, travel

Aug 27 2012

4 Comments

Travel

Doxycycline? More like doxysuckline!

Preface: jbdy here; this is going to be a text bomb, if you’re here for pictures just scroll to the bottom.

So apparently I’m supposed to recount the time from after Khao Yai National Park until now. I’ve been putting it off because I fucking hate the WordPress app for iOS. Marrrrrffin, why are you using suckpress again?? (Funny side story, when asked his username for Scramble, he said – and think as fobby as possible – “em-ay-ahr-ahr-ahr-ahr-ahr-eff-eff-i-n”. Is that only funny to me? Damnit it probably is.)

Bangkok

We originally weren’t planning on coming back to Bangkok, but after reading up on my anti-malarial meds, Doxycycline, and its apparent side effect of sun-sensitivity, I convinced Marvin to head back to BKK get some different meds from the travel clinic. I was also worried about his prophylaxis of choice (mefloquine) and its side effect of making people GO CRAZY; I didn’t want to deal with that for rest of the trip. Cause Marfin you already cray

Mango Tango has become a must in BKK

Ended up staying two nights in Bangkok, on a street we dubbed Ladyboy Lane, because…yeah you get it. Got boat noodles at BTS Victory Monument and was disappointed – guess it will be hard to match that hey-what’s-this-omg-mind-blown experience in Ayutthaya.

Ah, quick story about BKK dirtayness: ate a street stall near our hotel, probably one of the grungiest, sketchiest places I’ve ever eaten. Marvin couldn’t see from his seat, but I had a perfect view of the cockroaches and big rats scurrying around. al;djks;kafk;asd;fkja;kdjsf….anyway, on to…

Siem Reap, Cambodia

If you believe the internet, the journey from BKK to SR is a perilous one, fraught with scammers and more scammers. Luckily, we went on a weekday and thus there was a lower supply of tourists, which I suppose causes the scammers to put their efforts elsewhere. The easy part: 6-hour bus ride from BKK to Aranyaprathet, a quick tuk tuk to the border, and the visa paperwork at the border. During the visa part, we got stalked by a young “tourist information guide” trying to herd tourists onto the “free shuttle” to the border town’s bus station, where a cheap but super slow (and waits to fill-up) bus or expensive ass taxis are available. (If anyone is actually interested in the BKK-SR journey in details, let me know; if you know what to do, you’ll be able to easily avoid all the scams.)

Siem Reap was an interesting town. I should have expected it, but it was a superrrr touristy area. For the most part that’s good for first-time visitors, as it made everything really easy to get to and there were plenty of activities to keep us occupied for 4-5 days. I’m not going to post too many temple pictures because, well, you can find better ones on the net and I’m not the best photographer.

Oh, the bad part is that you have to deal with hordes of annoying Asian tourists. Angkor Wat sunrise? Forget it, not worth it. Even if it wasn’t cloudy (which it was, woke up at 4:30 for nothing), the fact that we were fighting to keep our spot from pushy Asian folks would be enough to ruin the experience. Go take your stupid duckface self-pose somewhere else you assgirl. Anyway, some pictures below…

Fobbin’ it up, temple style

Some lights in SR, near one of many night markets, some water and bridges

You’ve seen this before

As good as it got. Cloud troll

Rode an ATV around the countryside. Saw a lot of these guys and their poo. It’s wet season here so of course I got soaked.

Yea suck on that.

So to summarize Siem Reap…temples, $4-5 massages, touristy Khmer food (still good), happy pizza, night markets with same same shops, ice cream.

Phnom Penh

After another 6-hour bus ride, we’ve arrived at the capitol of Cambodia. Our first real meal…

Deep fried tarantula. So I felt something crawling on my leg while they were showing us the live tarantula and thought, “Ok, there’s now a tarantula on my leg”. Instead, it was a GIANT COCKROACH and I was too shocked to freak out. I can’t believe a cockroach crawled on me, I hate those pieces of shit. Judge all you want. Bleerrgghhghhhhhh

So as I’m writing this in my guesthouse, I am majorly missing Bangkok. I even miss Siem Reap, because the Cashew Nut guesthouse was really a nice place. Here in Europe Guesthouse we have dirtyass sheets and moldy pillows. Worst of all SLOW WIFI omgz i can hardly play scramble.

I’m pretty sure this pillow was originally white. If it’s not obvious…don’t stay here when you come to PP.

It smells awful when I lay down. Fuuckkkkkkkk get me out of here.

The only benefit to this guesthouse is that its location – riverfront with a lot of restaurants & bars, including the go-go bars aka hostess bars. No, I am not going to them, goshhhhh get yer mind outta the gutter. But it’s still amusing to walk by bars called “The Horny Bar” and “Pussy Cat”, and be angrily hollered/solicited at. Marvin gets so embarrassed.

TL;DR bangkok, eat; siem reap, temples, eat, massage; phnom penh, shithole hostel.

What’s next? One more day of PP, then off to the beach at Sihanoukville. After that, it’s back to PP and then Vietnam! Where we will get even fatter. Sigh (but it feels so good at the time)

Picture time!

I love 7-11 taro sliced bread

Some kind of peanut mixture wrapped with rice noodley stuff

Some kind of coconut soft cake

Fried pork chop and pork belly with garlic crispy bits. SO GOOD

Roti sai mai, an Ayutthayan speciality? Thai-style sugarcane cotton candy wrapped with roti thingy

Before we finished up Ayutthaya we went back for seconds of boat noodles.

Chibi maki sushi. There’s an angry bird one in there. They love angry birds in asia.

Buttered bread with corn in the middle or something

Rented bikes. Big mistake, got scooters later.

Marfin doin his thang…I guess…

The dog didn’t want to move so this happened

Practicing our fob poses. Obviously still need a lot of work in these self-photos

Calling all ladyboys

Huge ass spider in a cave. Khao Yai

Swam in a spring where locals take baths. Then millipede happened. Khao Yai

Crazy fast centipede in the cave. Khao Yaieeeeletsgtfooooooo

Marvin’s true self. Khao Yai

Bats. So many bats. Khao Yai

Gibbon, eating. Khao Yai

Barking deer…you are a LIAR! Khao Yai

Tour guides aren’t afraid of anything; he tamed this little guy. Khao Yai

Umm… (Khao Yai)

…yeah. Nice waterfall though. Khao Yai

Asians and their picture-taking poses. So many things to learn. Siem Reap

Bike ride through Siem Reap Angkor area

I love this picture

Cambodian noodles. Siem Reap

Khmer chicken curry, Siem Reap

Angkor Wat sunrise, ruined by people

-jeboody

Tagged adventure, Angkor wat, asia, ayutthaya, backpack, backpacking, bangkok, bugs, cambodia, food, jungle, phnom penh, se Asia, siem reap, southeast asia, temple, thailand, travel, Wat

Aug 23 2012

1 Comment

Uncategorized

OoOOwee Ayutthaya and Khao Yai Yayeeaahhhh

First stop outside of Bangkok: Ayutthaya.

There wasn’t much expected for this town. We know that there are a bunch of old temples to look at. While it is fun to see the history of Thailand, looking at all the temples can get monotonous. To make things interesting, we decided to rent bicycles.

I think we rode for MAYBE half a mile before we realized it was going to b a dumb idea, so we went back and upgraded to SCOOTERS!

Scooters made the day much more interesting. If anyone has been to Asia before, you know a majority of people ride scooters around, splitting lanes and such. I have very little scooter/motorcycle experience so it took some time getting used to.

jbd note: This was painfully obvious, since Marvin never switched off his turn signal, almost ran into a parked truck accelerating from 0, and his helmet freakin broke off while we were racing back to beat the rain.

With the scooters, we really got to see everything we wanted to see and more. We did the usual sightseeing of the temples but the highlights of this town was discovering the new foods.

Riding around town, we can see where a lot of the locals like to eat. We just followed the crowds and found two new foods sai mai and the highlight being kǔaytǐaw ruea (boat noodles). These little bowls of noodles are 15 baht, which is about 50 cents a bowl. People would eat 5-10 in one sitting. I don’t think Jeffry has stopped talking about it. We actually went back for dinner too.

After a long delay at Ayutthaya Train Station, we were off to Pak Chong/Khao Yai National Park. We spent two days here. We went into bat caves, watched bats leave their caves, I touched a bunch of huge bugs, trekked the jungle, and looked for wildlife.

bat cave

Bat’s going off to feed

Great Horn Bill

Gibbon

Jungle Grassland

We went BACK to Bangkok for a day (I’ll have to let Jeffry explain that one ) and are now in Siem Reap, Cambodia.

Tagged asia, ayutthaya, backpack, backpacking, bangkok, bats, cave, food, jungle, noodles, thailand, travel

Aug 18 2012

3 Comments

Travel Image

What am I getting myself into

Hello ghost readers, jeboody here. I’ll be guest blogging here frequently during our 2-month trip around SE Asia. I haven’t written shit like this since the xanga days and WordPress on iPhone is also shitty, so apologies in advance for cool stories and dumbass formatting (Fuck! I didn’t mean to post already. Damn wordpress app).

Well, Gigi left today so the luxury stays are over. We ended the good life with the nicest hotel this far: Renaissance Marriot Ratchaprasong. I thought we fit in pretty well with our backpacks and dri-fit shirts. Btw, Marvin lied to me about the color of his pack so now we have the same exact one. What a poserSince my brother, Ivan, hooked us up with a room with his marriot status, we had access to the club lounge. Shit was tight; fresh juice everywhere. Pretty much stayed there for half the day to gorge ourselves with their breakfast twice (saw gigi off at 6, ate, slept, worked out, ate…yes I am a fatty), plan stuff, drank some more juice, eat cakes.SO FAT BUT SO AWESOME

Anndddddd onto our b&b/guesthouse/hostel. It reminds me of chinese camp or loveboat…except probably a little bit nicer.

Well, tomorrow morning we leave Bangkok; we’ll be hitting up some old-ass city called Ayutthata, some big-ass foresty national park called Khao Yai, then Nakhon Ratchasima (sp?) and neighboring old temple (Phimai?!?!?), and thennnn off to Cambodeezy!

Some misc photos from the past couple of days below

Chatuchak market from Mo Chit BTS. So much rain.

Sitting at a Thai street stall in Chatuchak. Thai street food makes me gassy. Marvin is shaking his head in disapproval but I know he likes it.

Wat Arun. Pretty cool climbing up the temple.

Mainlander tried to take our seats during the gap of time between lifting bags off seat and sitting down in said seat. Manners…they have none.

-jeboody

Aug 10 2012

3 Comments

Fishing, Travel

Snapshots of My Life in Alaska

Finally, some pictures of my trip in chronological order:

Tagged adventure, alaska, fish, fishing, fox, king, king salmon, lake, landscape, long lining, net, photos, pictures, red, salmon, saning, scenery, Set net, sunset, travel, ugashik, wildlife

Jul 26 2012

1 Comment

Fishing

Salmon fishing season is over. =[

Well it is over. Our season is done.

Last week of fishing was rough. 24 hour openings are brutal. There was no sleep, only naps. 3 hour naps was the most one could get of continuous sleep. The only consolation was not setting or pulling in the nets. Every few hours, we would need to check if the nets switched right with the tide or pick fish off the net. This season, Rollie, the boss decided to try something differnet in the Ugashik area. It was a really rough start, lots of trial and error. We had things break left and right. Our 3 am night picks became 5-6 hour endeavors because we would find our nets broken. We spent most of our time fixing things instead of fishing. This past week, we finally got everything together. Things were running smoothly. We were happy that we could actually start enjoying fishing rather than worry about what would break next.

With 24 hour openings means a lot of night fishing. At night, you are more likely to encounter bears. Fortunately, we didn’t see any bears, just a lot of bear scat and tracks. So we know they are wandering around the village. Although it would be terrifying to see a bear, I still want to see one, even a dead one. I had the opportunity to see a dead brown bear a couple weeks ago. I had heard that someone shot and killed one the previous night so I was on the hunt to find the body. Too bad, I didn’t get to see it. I just found the blood left there by the gunshot wound. If you kill a bear, you need to remove the carcass relatively quickly so not to attract other animals. I know there are other bears around so it is a matter of time until I see one. Hopefully I’ll see the, at a distance or when I’m in a car.

Fishing is still open but the tenders have left so there is no one to sell the fish to. We’re left to fish for salmon that I will bring back home. I am learning how to filet them so if you receive a vacuum pack filet of some fresh, wild, Alaskan red and king salmon that looks butchered, chances are good that I filleted that fish. Sorry.

Now it is time to enjoy the last week and a half that I am here. I hope to see bears, moose, and more of Alaska.

Oh yeah, we caught roughly 50,000 pounds for the season. Slow season but I think we caught more per site than anyone else in the village so I can’t complain.

Tagged alaska, Fisherman, fishing, king, red, salmon, Set net, set netting, ugashik

Jul 16 2012

I am set netting

What exactly am I doing in Alaska?

I’m commercial fishing. To be more specific, I am set netting.

Before coming to Alaska, my idea of commercial fishing was pulling a net around in the water. I didn’t realize how many different kinds of fishing there are. There’s saning, drifting, long lining, and set netting. I’m sure there are other kinds but these were discussed the most. What I’m doing in Ugashik is set netting.

Basically set netting is pulling out a net into the water from land. So there is no boat involved with setting the net. There are a lot of regulations as to how far and when you can set your net. My day revolves around announcements made the day before. For example, today the openings was at 630 am for 10 hours. So the earliest time we can put the nets into the water today was at 630 am and it has to be out of water by 4:30 pm. The only times we are allowed to fish is based off these openings.

Openings can be from 8 to 24 hours so there is potential to work around the clock. How they decide these openings is based on statistics reviewed by the regulators. They look at the amount of fish caught and escapement. Every season they have a target amount for each of the categories.

After we set the nets, we let them sit there for a few hours before we pick them. We would get in our boats and move down the net while picking the fish out of the net. Most of the fish that we catch are caught on the flood of the tide. So far this season has been slow and the season is already almost over. We’re around 30-40 thousand pounds. After we pick the net and pull in the nets. We transfer the fish on to the Alpha 1 and deliver the fish to the tenders/processors. These people buy the fish from the fisherman. They’ll clean and process the fish.

I can’t really say that there is a typical day. Everyday we start and stop at a new time and have different problems. I would say that we work an average of about 12 hrs on the days we fish. The past few days have started really early. We woke up at 330 am and 430 am to set the nets. Besides starting early, we have really late nights as well. We would have a closing time of 2 am and then have to deliver the fish which takes hours. Some of us would finish our days at 6-8 am.

There is only 10 more days in the season and many people have finished for the season. We were off tomorrow but fishing will be open for 24 hrs for the remainder of the season starting Tuesday at 9 am.

Hoping to finish with a 100,000 pound season.

Wish us luck!

Tagged alaska, fishing, salmon, Set net, ugashik, village

Less Thinking, More Doing

Author Archives: marvinwkuo

The Vietnam Vomit Express

EXTREME! Dalat.

Hello, motobike?…psst you want lady?

Fist Pumpin’ in Snookyville

Doxycycline? More like doxysuckline!

OoOOwee Ayutthaya and Khao Yai Yayeeaahhhh

What am I getting myself into

Snapshots of My Life in Alaska

Salmon fishing season is over. =[

I am set netting