The Nam and a Dead Kennedys Song

Hello party people,

I am gonna try my best to move through these rigs real quick so I can finish before I get back home. However, right now, at the speed I'm going it doesn't look like that's gonna happen! Oh well I shall try my best. At any rate, Brit and I are now in Costa Rica and are moving our way through Central America. The place is hella pricey so we'll probably only be here a minute before gettin to Nicaragua where it's cheaper.

So today I'm gonna write about Vietnam and Cambodia. I'm gonna combine the two so I don't gotta do two updates and because we ripped through the places pretty quick. Away we go!

After the long bus journey from Laos to Vietnam we ended up in a city called Vinh which was a diiiiiive. We weren't planning on staying there but were worried we might have too cause we couldn't really find a bus to where we wanted to go. We lurked around and luckily we found a couple buses that were headed to Hoi An overnight. Problem was we had no Vietnamese currency (which is named Dong...heheh). So Brit got sent out on the journey to find some while I waited and watched our bags. She was gone forever and I started to get worried someone had kidnapped her. After waiting for what seemed like hours she strolled back and let me know she had to search the entire city to find a bank machine. We had to wait some time for our bus and we thought it left without us at one point which led to me chasing it down the street only to find it was a different bus. We snagged the bus and cruised overnight to Hoi An.

Hoi An was a super nice place. Probably one of the most pleasant looking cities we have been to on our whole trip. Many of the streets are blocked out from cars and scooters so you can just walk leisurely around without horns blaring in your ear every 5 seconds. Everyone comes to the place to get clothes made cause there are custom tailors on every block. We found one and each got some stuff ordered up. Brit got some girly clothes like dresses and stuff and I got a slick suit measured up for myself. The stuff was super cheap compared to what you'd pay for a custom made suit back at home. I got all the fixin's too, I'll be looking super snazzy. Now I just gotta get invited to an event where wearing a suit is acceptable...We bummed around in Hoi An for awhile just cruising on a scooter going to beaches and checking out some temples and that kinda thing. After that place we caught our next bus down to Nha Trang.

Nha Trang was a bit more built up that Hoi An and the tourist thing to do seemed to be going diving. We weren't certified for diving at the time and really didn't have any plans to do anything like that till we got to Thailand and could do it for cheap. However, with all the dive shops around and tourists touting dive gear all over we were feeling like it was something we had to do. First though, we decided to check out the beach to see if we could just hang there while we were in town. We got there and found the beach was nice for lounging in the sun but not so nice for swimming. Also, all the places along the beach to eat and drink were quite pricey. We paid like 4 bucks each for shakes! Crazy in Asia. So we decided to look into the diving. When we did we found it was out of our price range since we weren´t certified. Instead we booked a snorkeling tour. The next day we went out on the boat and discovered we were the only two people snorkeling and everyone else was gonna be diving. It sucked cause they were all off having their own little talks and being in their secret cool club and Brit and I were totally forgot about. Everyone got suited up and the instructors barely even acknowledged we were there and didn´t even realize we had no snorkel gear. It seemed like we were a burden to them. Despite this we still had a good time and saw quite a bit of fish and coral. I´m glad we didn't pay to dive as the sites we went too didn't seem so good and the instructors were complaining about poor visibility. So yea we ended up having a good time and the dog at the dive shop was insanely big and we got to play with him so that was a plus. We spent a couple nights in Nha Trang and then caught an overnight bus to Mui Ne.

The bus was funny cause it was sold to us as an overnight trip so we got all settled into our seats/beds on the bus and drifted off into dream world expecting to wake up in the morning at our stop. This didn't happen though since we were woken up at about 2am and told we were at our stop. Everyone else on the bus was sound asleep and continuing on to Saigon. Only Brit and I got off in Mui Ne. The town was dead and not a thing was open. We didn't have any idea what we were gonna do but some guy came up and said he had a hotel we could stay at. We got there at like 3am and he said we could either pay for the night or wait till 8am and check in then for the following night. Since we are cheapo's we decided to wait till 8 which meant we had to sleep on the floor of reception in our sleeping bags till then. We got munched on by mosquitoes and had to hide under the covers till "morning."

Mui Ne was super nice and we kinda bunged up cause we only spent a couple days there when we coulda spent longer. We were in a rush to get to the islands in Thailand to lay on the beaches not realizing the beaches in Mui Ne were just as nice. While we were there we went to the fairy stream which ran down through some mountains and you could hike up and get covered in red mud. We also checked out the sand dunes there (weird that a desert is in Vietnam) and did some hiking. We didn't even go swimming on the nice beaches! We did however meet a cool German couple Natalie and Lukas. Lukas looked exactly like my friend Conner Wear. From Mui Ne we caught the bus down to Ho Chi Minh aka Saigon.

Saigon was a zoo. The city has millions of people in it and I am pretty sure every single one of those people drive a scooter without even knowing how. It was a risk every time we tried crossing the street! It was kinda cool getting there though cause it was a pretty modern place and quite built up compared to the other places we had been. We even enjoyed some Subway for dinner, tasty. We went out to the Cu Chi tunnels which is where the Vietcong hid out from the Americans during the war. Pretty wild place. They had tunnels underground all over the place and lived under there for long periods at a time. We got to go in some of them and it was so squished and hot in there I couldn't imagine living down there for longer than the 10 minutes I was under. They also showed us the traps they had setup during the war. Things such as pits full of spikes, holes with bamboo designed to rip your leg off or big blocks of wood with nails that dropped down if you tripped a wire. Didn't look like much fun. Brit and I also went to the shooting range there and got to unload a clip with an AK47. Some badass shit right thurr! We met up with the German couple again and he told us stories about his job as a penis doctor back at home. Some of the operations he had to do made me queasy. Fun stuff like batteries up the dick and people having some weird sex that resulted in broken dicks (didn't know that could actually happen but apparently they break right sideways...ooooooof). Since this made me a bit queasy I started feeling all light headed and weird and had to run to the bathroom. I got mad sick in there as usual and almost blacked out and fell into the toilet that had no seat on it. People kept trying to come in as well cause the door had no lock so I had to tell them not to while struggling to keep conscious. I guess I am not cut out to be a doctor for wieners.

After Saigon we burned into Cambodia. We got to the capital Phnom Penh (where I think I wrote one of my blog updates ha). The trip there was pretty heavy cause we were there to check out the killing fields. For those of you that don't know...a few years back (1970's) there was a guy named Pol Pot and his following known as the Khmer Rouge came to power in Cambodia. The guy had a skewed view of Communism and wanted the country to return to a communal type society that focused on agricultural labour rather than business, education and the things more associated with a Capitalist society. He went about this by killing off countless numbers of people in his own society. People who were deemed to be against his communist rule, which seemed to be everyone, were taken to these killing fields and either forced to work insane amounts or murdered and buried in mass graves. It seemed like no one was safe from him and his army. People with glasses, degrees, diplomas, worked in business or spoke out against his rule were all killed. Even the children of these people were killed so no one would be out for revenge later in life. The killing fields themselves were pretty wild to see and definitely made you feel weird. You could still see the big holes in the ground where people were buried and there were remains of people on display all around the grounds. Things like bits of clothes, bones, teeth and skulls were everywhere. Pretty intense stuff. Worst part of it all was that the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot pretty much got away with it all. The dude lived till he was like 80 with grandchildren before he died a few years back. His trial just took waaaay to long. To offset this sad day that had me and Brit in a very downer mood our tuk-tuk driver thought it would be a good idea to take us to a shooting range where we could shoot guns and even blow up a cow with a bazooka if we wanted. We declined all those offers.


From Phnom Penh we hit the next highlight in Cambodia which is Siem Reap and the temples of Angkor Wat. Siem Reap itself was a cool town and obviously very built up due to all the tourism. There were markets, restaurants, shops and massage parlours everywhere. Brit and I got some massages one of which was a fish massage where you dunk your feet in a pool and the fish nibble on em to clean your toes. I couldn't handle it. It was just way too tickly for me. Brit was liking it though and enjoyed laughing at me with all the other massage girls. After that we got a real massage which was good except I had gas and the girl pushing on me kept squishing them out. So I was pretty much farting on my masseuse the whole time.


Angkor Wat was really good and much bigger than I expected it to be. I thought it was just a few temples to check out but it was like an entire city spread out with what seemed like hundreds of ancient ruin looking temples. We both enjoyed it as you can climb around on them and there are giant trees growing in and out of these huge rock buildings which makes it look like something outta Indiana Jones. The days were way to long though as we were pretty much all templed out by this point. After seeing countless temples in India, Nepal, China, Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam we just couldn't give Angkor Wat the time and appreciation it deserved. After two days of cruising all the temples there we grabbed a bus to Thailand, much to my arguing. I wanted to take a flight cause Thailand only gives ya a 15 day visa if you cross in by land and a 30 day one if you go by air. We were gonna be there longer than 30 days so I knew we were gonna have to leave and come back and the flight wouldn't have been much more expensive...but Brit insisted so we ended up taking the bus. Which gave us a real "fun" day later on down the road.


So that's all she wrote from Vietnam and Cambodia. I wish we had more time to spend in each place since I really don't think they got the attention they deserved. We were just too rushed to get to the beaches in Thailand and looking back now, we woulda had lots of time to stay a few days extra in each place. Oh well though that's just the way the dog reads the novel, if you know what I mean. I hope you enjoyed reading this cause it was a bitch to type. I wrote it over the span of a week on three different computers cause I would either get kicked off, the power would go out or the computer had to be shut down due to lightning (I dunno what the deal was with this last reason) but anyways it was a lot of work so you best enjoy it! I only got a few more updates till I am finito! Then all you readers can stop frequenting my blog cause it'll be all shit like "Yea...today I played video games with Ramsay while Con talked about weed and cats." Who knows though some of you may be into reading that shizzzzzz, but probably not cause Ramsay and Con are my two biggest readers.

Seriously though I love all ya'll who are reading this and am psyched to see you soon! Enjoy your time without me cause it's coming to an end soon hahahaha! I hope you all will enjoy the gifts I'm getting you.

Love forever,

rDwArNw

Ps. Have a good holiday!

 The big dog

 Brit got some sun

 Mui Ne

 Another malaria test

 Saigon scooter gang

 Waterbottle size dog

 Come on in!

 Brit's new man

 Fairy Stream

 Taking it like a champ

 Cambodia is hot

 Mass graves

Laosapollooza

Hello again my friends,

I always feel like I am kinda keeping up on this thing but then I check the last time I updated and realize it's been about a month since I wrote anything! Damn, I am gonna be back before I get a chance to finish updating this thing and then no one will want to read it.

Brit and I are now in Central America after a long hectic journey to get here from Bali. You guys and gals don't get to hear about it yet though cause I'm still so far behind that you gotta wait and hear about some other weird adventures first hahaha. We only got about 3 months left of our journey. The plan right now is to hit all the countries in Central America which are: Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Belize. We might have to scratch El Salvador though cause it is a bit outta the way for us and we may be pressed for time, bummer. For some reason everyone thinks I am in South America and am going to be traveling around there for the remainder of the trip...this includes my own family who I have told seeeeeeveral times that I'm not going there. Maybe this time they will understand that, if they read this that is.

So now let's move onto this beast. This entry is gonna focus on our short little romp through Northern Thailand and then our travels through Laos. I'm gonna combine the two and hopefully breeze through it cause I am still getting people telling me the blogs are toooooo looooooonnnnnggggg.

We caught a flight from Hong Kong into Bangkok which wasn't quite long enough for me to finish the movie I was watching. I was watching "Warrior" and the plane landed before I got to find out which brother won at the end. It was on my mind the entire trip till I found a guy who had the movie on his computer and I hounded him to copy it for me. I wasn't very happy with the ending.

Quick side note here. Brit thought this was funny and I left it out of my previous write up. For some reason I couldn't see the signs for Men's and Women's bathrooms in China. I kept ending up in the female facilities. This happened on numerous occasions and I was even showering in the girls showers and one point. Brit kept coming in and being like "What the fuck are you doing in here!?" I swear they weren't marked with gender but whenever I went out to look they were clearly marked and I couldn't figure out how I kept missing them.

Yes, I am getting distracted now. So we landed in Bangkok and caught a cab to Khao San Rd which is the world famous backpacker street in the grimey city (actually a lot cleaner and nicer than I expected). At the time I thought Khao San was the most horrible place I had ever been in my life. We got outta the cab to the world's busiest street filled with more backpacker people than we had seen during our entire trip combined. Shops were everywhere and music was blaring so loud from the dozens, perhaps hundreds of bars and clubs on the street. Everyone seemed to be there just to get fucked up. Now I am not some big time traveler or anything (this is my first trip) so I don't think I have some snobbish attitude when it comes to going to new places, but I'm pretty sure 95% of the people on Khao San were just traveling for the purpose of getting wasted, smoking weed, doing mushrooms or getting their hair put into dreadlocks. Rather than actually see the country they are in. Despite this we decided to stay due to the craziness of it and the cheap accommodation. Our flight got in at 1am and we were so tired but the wildness of Bangkok got to us and we stayed up till the early morning hours partying and checking the place out. We stayed in Bangkok for a couple days not doing tons other than checking out the sights of the city. Mostly markets and cruising along the river. We took and long-tail boat on the river to the famous floating markets (I'm sure most of you have seen the quintessential "Thailand" picture of boats filled with colorful fruit). Both me and Brit were excited to check it out and were horribly disappointed when the market turned out to be 1 guy in a tiny boat coming over trying to sell us some WWII era bananas.

After our short Bangkok excursion we caught a train up to Chiang Mai where we were meeting Brit's friend Amber's mom Randy. We met up with her and she was gracious enough to donate one of her apartments to us since it was empty after she had moved into a new place. She also gave us free eats at her restaurant Miguel's. Delicious Mexican food. Also included in the deal was use of her scooter which we used to burn around the city. We checked out lots of markets, got cheap massages where they bent and broke me in all different positions. I vowed to Brit I wouldn't get any more Thai massages and would only get the nice chill oil rub downs but still ended up getting the massages all the time. We went to some temples and to a wild waterfall which you could climb up. To get to these places I had to ride the scooter on the highway which was sketch due to the high speeds and large vehicles trying to cut me off every 2 minutes. We also got to go see some Muay Thai which I was excited for but it ended up being very staged like WWE style. They even had a midget fight. I am not very much into midget humor. From Chiang Mai we caught a bus up to Chiang Rai, a bit closer to the Laos border. Our nights there were fairly uneventful. We just wandered around and went to local markets. One night we got caught in the rain for a few hours which was monsoon style full of thunder and lightning. Everyone in the market was huddled in a small little space hiding from the rain. One other notable thing about Chiang Rai was our super hippy hostel that had black lights everywhere and psychedelic paintings covering every inch of wall. From there we caught another bus to the border where we switched to a boat that took us across the river and into Laos.

Laos was a pretty big stop for us which we weren't really planning on. The first stop had us in a small border town that I can't even begin to pronounce the name of let alone spell. I think it was something like Huay Xie? Although I'm not sure and am much to lazy to look that kinda thing up. From here we booked a 3 night tour into the jungle called "The Gibbon Experience." It was expensive but we'd been recommended it a few times and it sounded awesome. What it is, is a large system of ziplines in the jungle which takes you into tree houses way up high from the ground. I believe the one we stayed in was about 40-50 meters? Don't quote me on that though, it may be horribly wrong in either direction. All I know was that it was super high and if you fell you would probably die. We got shuttled in and had a huge hike to get to the ziplines. After a couple hours of trekking we got there and the ziplines were wild. The first ones we went on were pretty tame only a couple hundred meters long and around as high as the tree houses. As we got deeper in though they got crazy long like half a kilometer and ended up going canyon to canyon rather than tree to tree. We were up super high and the guides left us alone so we could zip as much as we wanted. It was a rad few days where we got to zip, trek and spot wildlife. We were lucky enough to see the gibbons swinging around in the trees on a couple of occasions. Our crew was super solid and we made some of the best friends we have on our entire trip! I would say that it was one of my favorite experiences of the trip, well worth the money...aside from the hand-size spiders that hung out on the walls. One of which ended up sleeping with Brit and I in our bed ugh.

From whatever that city was called we headed to Luang Prabang which was a real nice French style town that looked more European than an Asian city. The place was pretty much a hangout and chill spot, which is what we did. One day though we went out to some waterfalls in the area which were amazing. The water was a crazy blue color and crystal clear. It had rope swings and trees to jump from, plus you could climb up the falls and jump off them to the pool below. One of my favorite trip days as well. In Luang Prabang we met up with a friend from France we met on the Gibbon named Benjamin. He was a funny guy and tried to teach me French but this ended up in me trying to teach him some broken German only to get laughed at by some actual German people walking nearby saying that everything I was teaching him was wrong. They continued walking down the street mocking me.

Our next stop was Vang Vieng which was hellhole number 2 of the trip. We got in and pretty much the entire population of the town was drunk backpackers stumbling around through the streets treating the locals like shit. The big draw here is the famous tubing. You rent a tube and float down a river going to all the bars on the riverbanks that give you a free bucket drink and bracelet if you come in. The floating itself was fun but only lasted a couple minutes since the bars were so close and most of the time was spent actually in the bars. I personally hated it due to the hordes of drunkers surrounding me and the constant number of people trying to get me to take shots or drinks. It always led to me saying "no thanks, I don't drink" and usually led to people "ribbing" me calling me a pussy or something along those lines. I would have liked to punch these dweebs but everyone was so drunk and retarded I don't think it woulda been worth it. We were tubing with some friends which made it tolerable and Brit enjoyed herself. One saving grace was the ziplines and diving boards they had into the water which I could play around on while everyone else got boozed. All the bars in the actual town were better cause you could just chill and drink milkshakes and smoothies for like .50 cents each while watching endless episodes of Friends. All the menus still had weed shakes and mushroom shakes though and the majority of the people in the bars/restaurants were wasted. We ended up tubing a couple days and partying the nights away.

We partied with a couple from England named Mark and Rachel whom we met on the Gibbon Experience as well as two people from Montreal named Elie and Isabella. All great people. Elie stood up for me numerous times when the workers at the bars started gettin on my case for not drinking. I just laughed at them and told em to frig off but Elie would be willing to put up the fists over it. He did all this despite being Brit's size at about 5 foot 2.

We left Vang Vieng en route to Vientiane which is the capital of Laos. From there we planned on getting our Vietnam visas and heading into the country. On the journey once again I got very sick in the bum. It was only like a 2 hour drive but like 20 mins in I could feel it coming on and knew it was gonna be a rough one. I tried my best to tough it out but could only last another 20 minutes before I started getting super stressed out. I had to get Brit to tell the driver to stop cause I was much to embarrassed to do so myself. Best for her to seem like the one who had the shits. The driver pulled over in a spot where there was no bathroom and pretty much 0 tree cover. I bolted off the bus and made Brit come with me so it didn't seem like I was the only one who had to go to the bathroom. I tried hiding behind some trees but they were only about a quarter the size of me so I was pretty much hiding behind a couple twigs. Brit, as well as the entire bus, just sat there watching me as I basically poured 2 litres of water out my butt. Fun times. I got back on the bus with my head held very low.

We made it to Vientiane on a Friday and couldn't get our visas organized till Monday so we had to spend much longer in the city than we had planned. The place was very uneventful since there was little to do. We tried searching for a temple where you go into a sweat sauna but to no avail. Mostly we just wandered around the place and hung out in our super grimey hotel room. Once we were organized we decided to make one more stop in Laos before going into Vietnam, which was the Kanglor caves.

We got a bus down to the cave which is a 7km cave that you go through on a longtail boat in complete darkness. It sounded very Indiana Jones. We got there and realized the place was located in the middle of nowhere. There was 1 guest house where everyone stayed and only a couple places to eat. We stayed the night and the next day went to the cave. The trip was decent and pretty spooky. When we got into the caves it was pitch black. When the lights went out you couldn't see a thing. I dunno how our driver was navigating the river cause there were rocks and shit sticking up everywhere for us to run into. We got stuck a couple times and had to get out and push our boat. At the end we got to a green lagoon we could swim in. It also had some pretty swell rocks we could jump off of. The place was also swarming with butterflies and they swirled around you like a tornado.

After the caves we had a crazy journey to get to Vietnam. It entailed a few loooong rides in the back of pickup trucks, a couple different buses, an overnight in some dump of a city and even more buses. Finally though we made it to Vietnam!

Laos was a very fun place that kinda caught me off guard. I wasn't expecting to enjoy it much cause I didn't know much about the place. Both me and Brit ended up loving it though and had some of the best stops of our entire trip. The Gibbon experience was amazing and probably ranks in the top 3 things we did over the whole trip. One major gripe I do have about the place is the food. Not the type of food or anything but you get sooo little, it sucks. You order something a local guy beside you is eating and they bring you about 2 bites worth while the local dude's plate is overflowing. What a rip.

That was a pretty long one...ooof sorry guys. Hopefully you made it through. I've gotten into the habit of writing all the stories I got in detail and it's making things way to long. I'm also not gonna have much to tell you when I get home! Oh well I hope you friends o' mine still enjoy reading this bad boy from time to time. I'll hopefully update again soon so I can finish it all before I get back home when everyone will lose interest! Only a couple months to go.

Love you all, and I'm getting excited to see everyone when I get home! Bye for now.

Dan. RWRWRWRWRWRWRW

 

No Rikey Pt. 2

Welcome back everyone out there!

Once again I am sitting in a mingly (I've learned British people like to use the word "minging" to describe something dirty but I kept getting it wrong and saying it "mingly" which I actually prefer, so I use that now. Try it out on your friends) internet cafe writing another long and drawn out blog entry that most people will get halfway through then let me know that my blog's are too long for them to read and need to be shorter. Too bad for those people since I don't succumb to peer pressure so I'm just gonna keep on writing my ass off and see how long I can actually make these bad boys. That being said, I only have about half an hour left of my internet time so I gotta make this semi quick. I'll write as quick as I can and we'll all see how far I can get. Sounds like fun.

Ok, so here's a quick run down on what's been going on since my last update which I wrote while we we're in Cambodia. We went through a few places in Thailand.

Well now that that's outta the way lets get going on the second part of our quick burn through China! When I left ya'll last Brit and I were just heading out of crazy Shanghai to a little place by the name of Suzhou. Except it's not that little. China has a weird way of describing small places, it seems that if less than 2 million people live there then it's a small place but to me that is fucking massive and makes me get lost for hours. Which was exactly the case in Suzhou...So Brit and I left Shanghai by hopping on a train that claimed it was going to get us to Suzhou in about half an hour. Looking at a map however I didn't think that was gonna be possible cause it was quite the distance away. We got on the train and it more resembled the inside of an airplane than the trains we were used to. We got going and both realized that we probably were gonna make it there in half an hour cause the train was insaaaaaanely fast. I dunno how quick it was actually going but you couldn't even tell what was whizzing by the window when you looked out. I'm pretty sure if the thing went of the rails we would have just flown across the earth and ended up on my front doorstep in Vernon. So we ended up getting to Suzhou on time.

The main draw in Suzhou is the gardens that are supposed to be extremely gorgeous when everything is in bloom on a nice summer day. The only problem was we were in China when the place was freezing my tits off and I don't think the flowers like to bloom in torrential downpours of ice water. So we got to our hostel which ended the streak we had going of nice hostels in China...bummer. It was getting kinda late and we headed out to see the first garden only to find it was closed for the evening...another bummer. Instead we wandered around the city and found a crazy walking street with tons of shops and an arcade which we took a peek in. We quickly found out that it's no stereotype and Asians LOVE video games. I spent a good hour or so wandering around watching the kids murk each other at all types of fighting games and both me and Brit were in awe of one girl playing Dance Dance Revolution. She had the game going on the hardest difficulty and the hardest song and wasn't missing a single step...not only that she was playing 2 fucking DDR machines at one time! Fucking insane. Brit thought she'd give it a go and got on the easiest setting only to be made a fool of in front of a large crowd of Chinese people that came to laugh at her. We played some Mario cart after that and I showed Brit how a real man drives. For some reason I put the picture of it up on the last blog entry though...You'll have to scroll down there to see evidence that it actually happened. After putting Brit in her place through Mario cart I ended up at a hair salon getting my hair cut somehow. It cost me 3 dollars and I got a full shampoo/head massage from one girl, a back, neck and arm massage from another girl and then finally my hair cut and styled by some guy. I think Chatter's needs to lower their prices after that service! Brit disagrees. Quick side note...the Asians thought the style of hair cut I wanted was absurd and I had a big crowd watching me get the cut. Apparently the standard fade cut is really out there in China.

Next day we got some info from our hotel lady on how to get to the best garden Suzhou had to offer. She wrote a note for us to hop on the 509 bus and ride it right till the end and we couldn't miss the huge park/garden. We got the bus rode it for an hour till the bus driver forced us to get off...in the middle of fucking nowhere. We wandered around but couldn't find this garden so had to walk a ways back till another 509 going the opposite direction got us. We rode it again all the way to the other end of town which took like 2-3 hours on the bus, huge fucking city with tons of stops. Got off again and found there was no garden and no civilization around. Wandered forever but found nothing...the only good thing about it was Brit had to hide in a bush and pee on the side of the road awkwardly which made me laugh. For once it wasn't me doing the embarrassing shit. We decided to pull out the ol' note our hotel lady gave us and found that we were actually supposed to catch the 309...but it was too late now and the day was ruined on buses. We took another 2 hours to get back in the city and just laid low for the night...defeated by the gardens of Suzhou. In the morning we caught another train to Hangzhou which is further south near the east coast. The city was super nice when we rolled in with crazy Ferrari, Aston Martin and Porsche car dealerships lining the streets. We rucked up to our hostel which again was fancy and cheap. Hangzhou is famous for the big lake that it's built around. There are big temples and rock formations jutting up out of the lake and tons of Chinese style boats cruise around on it all day offering tours. Brit and I opted for the health conscious route and walked around the entire lake which was really nice and the first actual "exercise" I got in months. Other than the lake though Hangzhou wasn't that action packed...at this point the allure of the huge Chinese cities had worn off and the actual city part of it was all starting to look the same to me.

After Hangzhou we had originally planned to go to Xiamen which is right on the coast. At the last second though we switched our plans and decided to head to Yangshou which is more towards the interior above Guangzhou and Hong Kong...which probably means nothing to the people reading this. Trust me though if you look at a map I'm geographically correct. The trip to Yangshou was rough due to the length. I'm pretty sure we were on the train for about 24 hours and every stop we had to question tons of people to figure out where we were (if you read the last one you'll recall that NO one speaks English). Everyone usually just gave us the head shake + talk to the hand gesture. Such a polite way of saying "I don't understand," sticking your dirty mitt right in my face. After the huge train ride we had to hop on a bus for another hour or so to get where we wanted to be.

Right when we got there though we knew we made a good decision. The landscape in the place was crazy. The guidebook described it as "absolutely gorgeous karst topography." Since I didn't know what "karst topography" was and I'm not sure if many of you will be able to imagine what that looks like, I'll put it not-so smart sounding terms. They were super high pointy mountains covered in trees that just jutted out of everywhere. Like something you'd see in Kung Fu Panda. If you're a Mr. Smartypants though you can just go the karst topography route instead. The town was also situated along the Li and Yulong river and the streets around it are for walking only which made it extra nice. We got to a nice hostel again and cruised the streets. Got some weird food for dinner which I didn't like too much and then went for massages. Brit seems to like these Asian style massages which is absurd to me cause I think the girls doing it are just trying to hurt you on purpose. Brit is either getting the wimpy girls who don't push hard or I'm just a huge puss cause every time I go I am on the verge of tears while they bend and break me while Brit is just smiling away. Despite this I still keep going to them thinking that the next one will always be better than the last...

Next day we rented bikes to go ride to the Dragon Bridge along the Yulong river which is supposed to have the nicest scenery. We got our bikes and the hostel people gave us ponchos for the rain they assured us was coming. I scoffed at them saying I would be all good but they insisted so we ended up taking them, which turned out to be a life saver. About 10 minutes into our ride it started to pour rain all over us. We were told that the place we wanted to go was about a 30 min ride so we pushed on thinking the rain would stop but it just got worse and worse. We ended up in another town and having to ask people where to go. Some guys pointed us down a road that looked sketchy. We headed down and ended up beside the river on a bridge that didn't look very Dragon-esque. We took some flicks and crossed to the other side to head back. We followed a dirt path along the river that our map told us to take but it ended up going through peoples farms and crops getting super skinny. Neither Brit or I could actually ride on the path cause it was so rough and skinny, and there was a river on one side and a 5 foot drop into mud on the other. We ended up walking our bikes along this path for hours getting soaked and covered in mud. Along the way Brit realized she lost the bike lock so I had to trudge back to go look for it. I ended up not finding it and when I came back Brit was getting accosted by some crazy Chinese guy. He was yelling at her flailing his arms and pointing in all directions. We had no idea what he was trying to say so just kept walking with him yelling at us. Eventually we got to a part in the river where we could cross to the other side and hopefully get back to the road but after going halfway we realized we were probably going to get swept away and had to head back. I pulled out the map to figure out where we were but it got so drenched in the rain it just disintegrated instantly in my hands. The sun was going down and we were hopelessly lost on some skinny little path in the middle of nowhere. We got so frustrated we decided to cut across some crop land into a little village nearby to ask for directions. Once we got across the crops and farm we found a nice, pleasant little paved biking path that ran all the way along the river. Good thing we didn't find that 5 hours earlier...We booked it along the path to try and get back before it was pitch black out and it took us forever with more wrong turns and semi-getting lost. We ended up back in Yangshou without even knowing it and were asking for directions all over the place and stressing out before realizing we were 1 street over from our hostel. That one made me feel really smart.

After that fiasco Brit and I were completely soaked and frozen. I ran straight into the hot shower and for some reason my hands and feet started to itch uncontrollably. I tried scratching but nothing worked and I was freaking the fuck out trying to get Brit to help me. She couldn't do anything but laugh at me though. It subsided after like an hour and after I scratched them raw. I was in such a piss poor mood that night I went to the nearest Mcdonald's and just ate Big Mac's. Once we got back to our hostel we found a brochure with pictures of the Dragon Bridge and realized the bridge we had found wasn't even the right one...apparently the one we found was just a simple foot bridge and wasn't even special at all. Needless to say, it was a great bike trip.
In the morning we went to the big local market where we were exposed to our first cat and dog meat sales. It's pretty common to hear the stereotype that you'll be fed cat meat in China and that Chinese people like to eat dog but I didn't really think it was that true. At this market though there were dead cats and dogs skinned and hanging on hooks to bleed out. Guys were chopping through dogs skulls with big cleavers and popping out their eyeballs. The worst thing though was that their were live dogs and cats squished together in cages all shaking in fear. Must be pretty rough to be sitting right there watching your buds get skinned and chopped up. The dead dogs were laid on top of the live dogs cage and they were getting covered in blood and licking at the dead dogs above them. It was super grusome and I thought beforehand it would be interesting to see but I just felt really weird and gross so we had to get the fuck outta there. Neither of us were too inclined to eat meat for a couple days after that. Out last excursion in Yangshou was to the rice terraces near the city. They are the rice fields carved up the sides of mountains and you get to hike to the top to overlook the villages and rice fields of the surrounding villages. On the way we stopped at this long-haired village where the women don't cut their hair for their entire lives. They had a play/dance show to teach what their culture was all about and I got selected to participate from the crowd in front of about 150 people. I had to wear a silly get-up and dance around with these women while they pinched my ass. Then they gave me a mic and told me I had to sing a love song in front of everyone...most embarrassing shit ever. Afterwards a local news team interviewed me and informed me they filmed the whole thing so I may have wound up on Chinese television. The rice paddies themselves weren't so great due to the fog but the villages were cool and the hike was nice so all in all it was a good day trip...aside from being humiliated in front of a large audience.

This is running really long now and my internet time is almost up (I went over my half hour time limit) so for the last stop of China, which was Hong Kong I am going to switch back to my trusty friend. Point form!

- Caught overnight bus from Yangshou to Hong Kong that was jam packed with people. Had to sleep 3 people in a 2 person bed. Me, Brit and strange Chinaman.
- Got to Hong Kong and checked into Chunking Mansions (cheapest places to stay in Hong Kong) which was a crazy mall/apartment building with about 100 different hostels inside. The rooms are literally a bed. Open the door, one person gets on the bed and the other passes the bags in and then comes in onto the bed. There is no standing room at all.
- Checked out the walk of fame and lights show. Saw Jackie Chan's, Bruce Lee's and Jet Li's hand prints.
- Went up the peak tram to the top of HK. Hiked all the way down.
- Cruised Soho and the bar district.
- Rode the longest escalator in the world.
- Searched for and purchased self-freezing Coke. You open it and it turns into a slurpee somehow.
- Shopped til we dropped.
- Went to HK Disneyland. Watched Mickey Mouse speak Chinese and got grilled out by Stitch in front of a large audience.
- Went in lots of huge malls and tall buildings.
- Rode trams and hit the beaches.
- Got accosted by millions of people trying to sell me anything you could imagine (except Monkey's paw's, sorry Ramsay)
- Got lost in sea's of people trying to cross the road.
- Took a day trip to Macau (the Vegas of the east) and checked out insanely big casinos. More like cities than hotels. Quickly realized I am no good at gambling and would have been bankrupt if Brit wasn't there to stop me. Partied in casinos all night and didn't get home till around 4am.
- Ate lots of noodles.
- Caught a flight to Bangkok.

There you have it folks. If you have managed to make it this far you've just come with me on a fantastic journey across China. You pretty much don't ever need to go there yourselves now thanks to the amazing writing in this blog. No need to thank me. I hope you guys and gals enjoyed it...especially these people for letting me know what a bangup job I'm doing: Ryan Ramsay, Zach Hutchinson, my Auntie Lynn and Uncle Tom, Uncle Frank, My Bro (maybe if he makes it through), Joni and Derrek, Damien Moore, Cory Myraas, Jon Arkle, Grant McChicken, Cory Dobson, Brenton aka Fatty, Bing and anyone else who has been secretly checking this rig out without letting me know. I love all ya'll and look forward to seeing those handsome faces when I get home!

Keep livin' wrong everyone,

peace, love, rw

- dan

Ps. Bing is gonna get a rad gift cause she was the only one who messaged me and asked for one! Rest of you gotta get on that if you wanna have fun useless stuff cluttering your house!



Had to sing during this show

Rice rice baby

Hong Kong

Hong Kong night cruisin

You don't wanna know how long it took me to figure out how to do these

Turtle treat

Asian Chatter's salon

Us Indians call it "maize"

The wet ride

Don't judge

Cat and dog sandwhich

Our Hong Kong hotel room was spacious

The kong

The legend

Just a few people

Macau casino and hotel

Another hotel

Yet another hotel and casino

Disney