“How can a book end that way”? Ellie protested again and again. ” A mom just doesn’t abandon her child for no reason.” The book in question is Katherine Paterson’s, “The Great Gilly Hopkins.” Gilly is a brainy 13 year old who struggles with the consequences of being abandoned at birth by her mother. Clinging to a single photograph with its unfulfilled promise, “I will always love you,” Gilly makes a mess of things for herself and others as she is forced to move from one foster home to another; unable to give or receive love, she becomes unbearably intolerant even with those who reach out to help her. After moving into her grandmother’s house, Gilly was sure she was just one step away from her mother’s rescue. Her mother did come, but only for a day, “to see for [herself] how the kid was doing…” leaving Gilly behind without even the promise of love.

We read “The Great Gilly Hopkins” the first week of our trip. It was our working book, a chance to teach respect and tolerance. But it was the reality of a mother’s abandonment that left Ellie unhinged. The thought was inconceivable. Throughout the remainder of our adventure, she would periodically cry out in anger about this unthinkable ending…until Battambang.

We had met Jenny earlier in our trip while staying at Mut Mee in Nong Khai, Thailand (see “Friendship Bridge” post). It was a brief introduction, but came with an invitation from Jenny to visit her in Cambodia. We decided to cut our stay in Siem Reap short and drive the five hours to Battambang, over bumpy, unpaved roads in the back of a taxi with no seatbelts and a steering wheel on the side of the car meant for “Commonwealth” nations but not Cambodia. We hobbled out of the car at first sight of a hotel. I paid the driver more as way to get rid of him than in exchange for the service, wondering whether we should have ever left Siem Reap and thinking I may have to stay in Battambang until an airport is built. At that point, I couldn’t imagine how we were going to survive the drive to Cambodia’s border with Thailand.

Battambang is the second largest city in Cambodia, but it is decades behind Siem Reap and Phnom Penh in development. There is no real high speed Internet available in town. A quiet evening, good book and large bottle of water (or wine) are required to send and receive e-mail. There are a few hotels, probably “The Villa” being in the lead, trying to claim a multi-starred rating. Battambang has virtually no tourist industry, save the NGO traffic. There is one deli/restaurant that has mastered a good café latte and French toast for breakfast, a Chinese mini-mart that has a few recognizable food items for sale. But, otherwise, visitors must rely on the open-air market in city center for food and clothing staples. It is possible to walk from one end of Battambang to the other in 15 minutes on mostly packed dirt roads. Battamang is a gritty, third world city, with all the authenticity lacking in Siem Reap and not an ounce of royal bluster as seen in Phnom Penh. It was a real treat to discover.

We read “The Great Gilly Hopkins” the first week of our trip. It was our working book, a chance to teach respect and tolerance. But it was the reality of a mother’s abandonment that left Ellie unhinged. The thought was inconceivable. Throughout the remainder of our adventure, she would periodically cry out in anger about this unthinkable ending…until Battambang.

We had met Jenny earlier in our trip while staying at Mut Mee in Nong Khai, Thailand (see “Friendship Bridge” post). It was a brief introduction, but came with an invitation from Jenny to visit her in Cambodia. We decided to cut our stay in Siem Reap short and drive the five hours to Battambang, over bumpy, unpaved roads in the back of a taxi with no seatbelts and a steering wheel on the side of the car meant for “Commonwealth” nations but not Cambodia. We hobbled out of the car at first sight of a hotel. I paid the driver more as way to get rid of him than in exchange for the service, wondering whether we should have ever left Siem Reap and thinking I may have to stay in Battambang until an airport is built. At that point, I couldn’t imagine how we were going to survive the drive to Cambodia’s border with Thailand.

Battambang is the second largest city in Cambodia, but it is decades behind Siem Reap and Phnom Penh in development. There is no real high speed Internet available in town. A quiet evening, good book and large bottle of water (or wine) are required to send and receive e-mail. There are a few hotels, probably “The Villa” being in the lead, trying to claim a multi-starred rating. Battambang has virtually no tourist industry, save the NGO traffic. There is one deli/restaurant that has mastered a good café latte and French toast for breakfast, a Chinese mini-mart that has a few recognizable food items for sale. But, otherwise, visitors must rely on the open-air market in city center for food and clothing staples. It is possible to walk from one end of Battambang to the other in 15 minutes on mostly packed dirt roads. Battamang is a gritty, third world city, with all the authenticity lacking in Siem Reap and not an ounce of royal bluster as seen in Phnom Penh. It was a real treat to discover.

Our day with Jenny and Andrew started on the back of motorbikes. We accompanied social workers to about half a dozen families that are receiving help from Tean Thor. In addition to living in extreme poverty, these families also have HIV/AIDS in common. The impact of this disease, which mostly spreads through prostitution in S.E. Asia, hit us head on at our first stop. Sitting on the floor of his bamboo one-room home, a father was cuddling his three-year old daughter like a newborn. She was wasting away, without the strength to eat or the resources and family support to receive the anti-viral drugs necessary to keep her illness at bay. The mother had fled…for no apparent reason. There were some reports of spousal abuse. Perhaps rice whiskey played a role. Both parents probably are HIV positive and not receiving treatment for their illnesses. Standing there, listening to the sad sad story of this family, it is hard to know for whom to cry. In an instant, Ellie understood how a mother might leave her child behind. This understanding didn’t make it the right decision in her mind, but there was empathy and a little less judgment. Maybe Katherine Paterson intended to teach the reader a bit about tolerance too.

The rest of the morning was filled with more tragic stories of poverty and illness. The need is great. But Jenny, Andrew and Ky Lok know that in this part of the world, on the far side of the wealthy hand that has been dealt to the developed world, small gestures can be life giving. Day by day, they are piling on small gestures, already helping hundreds. Ellie and I spent the afternoon in their English class, where children from about 8 to 16 are crowding the one-room schoolhouse to learn a skill that might raise them out of poverty’s grasp. It’s a long shot; but one that I’m betting on. When we started our three month voyage through S.E. Asia, I noted that one of the reasons I have a website chronicling our travels is to hopefully inspire others to travel. If I haven’t grabbed your attention, this is the moment. If this doesn’t do it, nothing will. There is so much joy in meeting people like Jenny, Andrew and Ky Lok. They are what inspire me to travel. Andrew says he is committed to three more years in Battambang, working with Ky Lok and breathing life into Children’s Future International. Thus far, he has been funding his living expenses with savings. To stay three more years, he will need to receive funding to support himself. If you read this post, keep your eyes on Andrew and his efforts, you may be inspired to help.

How do you see a place when it is so completely camouflaged by banana and coconut trees, where everything but transportation to and from the market takes place along narrow waterways not visible from the road? A bicycle ride. But, planning such a trip from the States proved too difficult .  Eventually, I hired Adventure South New Zealand to organize our bicycle trip through the Mekong Delta.

Our local guide, Nam, was 24-years old and quite a character.  For starters, he insisted on shielding every inch of his skin from the sun. Not a blemish, hair or fingernail was overlooked. The desire to have fair skin is not unusual in S.E. Asia, but Nam took it a step further than most. He donned a thick navy blue towel that cascaded from under his baseball cap covering his neck and the sides of his face. Sunglasses covered his eyes. He wore thin flesh-colored gloves with a satin sheen that reached passed his elbows to the end of his short-sleeved shirt, topped with a pair of black bicycle gloves. Thankfully, he laughed along with us chuckling,“Your friends will see photos and think I’m the ‘Bin Laden’ guide.”

Nam announced early in our trip, “I don’t like to read.” Even if it’s true, when does a tour guide admit such a thing? Indeed, he didn’t seem to have much interest in or knowledge of Vietnam’s history, religion, geography, and current affairs. The only bit of local news that clearly fascinated Nam was information about Vietnam’s “sapensen” bridges. According to Nam, the “Can Tho Bridge,” which was designed by a Japanese architecture firm, collapsed. “Do you want to take pictures of the collapsed bridge?” he asked many times over. “Soon we will be crossing the newest ‘sapensen’ bridge, ‘My Thuan.’ It was designed by an Australian architect firm and completed in 2000. Do you want to take pictures? It has 128 blue cables and is 1.5 kilometers long.” He quizzed Ellie the next day to see if she remembered the total number of blue cables swinging above the bridge.

At first, Nam reminded me of my son’s teenage friends – too self-absorbed to have much curiosity about the rest of the world. Yet, there was more to Nam. He might be a self-professed “non-reader,” but I believe he nevertheless likes to learn, snapping up pictures and tidbits of information along the way as if the tourist. Further, Ellie noticed “Nam put up with all our little annoying requests, such as when he went with me to the supermarket in Long Xuyen to help read shampoo bottles so I knew whether they were for normal, oily or dry hair.” He also supported spontaneous itinerary changes with a smile. He hung around at the end of the day to play cards. And he made sure Ellie had all the rice and watermelon she could eat. In the end, he was attentive to our quirky requests every bit as much as his grooming rituals and, more importantly, he was fun and self-deprecating. If he tired of us it never showed – the essence of a really good guide.

One quick word about Thanh, our driver — AAA+.

Our bicycle trip began in Rach Ghia, where Nam and Thanh picked us up from the Super Dong Ferry at 11:00 a.m. (Yes, I believe that is the correct name for the ferry.) We were packed in the hole of the fast boat like sardines. Motorbikes were strapped along outside railings and decks, blocking any hopes of seeing out of our lair. We were surrounded by Vietnamese whose stomachs are notorious for their squeamishness on such boat rides. But this boat did push even the sturdiest of stomachs close to the retching point, and so vomit bags were passed around as soon as the motor started humming. We were sandwiched into five seats on either side of the aisle and the vomiting kept coming up — in front, behind and on either side of us. I was never so glad to be off a boat.

We planned to arrive in Can Tho later in the day after biking 78 kilometers. This seemed ambitious. But, even in my wildest dreams, I could not have pictured the chaos of Vietnamese roads, dashing any hopes of clocking such a distance in one day. The few paved roads that exist carry bicycles, motorbikes, cars, buses, and buffaloes all jumbled together. There are no traffic signals and no centerline to keep oncoming traffic safely tucked on one side of the pavement. Every few hundred yards, a monkey bridge spans narrow waterways alongside the road, leading to homes, fields, ducks, chickens, children and dirt paths where more bikes roam. The canals (we mostly followed the Xa No Canal system on the first day) also serve as roadways, carrying long boats with “shrimp-tail” motors through the channels. Children bathe and play, animals wash and defecate, fish are caught, and food and other wares are bought and sold on the muddy water. These fanning canals and the mighty Mekong River create and nurture practically all life in South Vietnam. It is a wonder to see it in action. One kilometer of travel would have been overwhelming enough. We fell exhausted into the support van after 23 kilometers.

The following morning a boat took us to Can Tho’s famous floating market, Cai Rang, where we watched the floating warehouses in action on the Mekong River. Boats advertise the fruits and vegetables for sale by skewering examples on long poles jetting up to the sky. By noon the haggling is accomplished and the floating businesses turn back into homes, with children splashing over the sides, laundry hanging out to dry, and hammocks offering afternoon siestas.

After lunch we ferried (there are many ferries in South Vietnam) to Cai Von and set up our bikes just outside of town. After a quick squat over the porcelain hole in the back of the petrol station, we were off, settling into a very gentle pace of about 10 kilometer/hour. A day wiser, we didn’t even try to keep pace with roadway traffic, meandered peacefully down the road while the rest of Vietnam was in motion. Why is this so different from biking on any road in the United States? There is the matter of no traffic signals or centerline, buffaloes crowding the lanes, and the distraction of people bathing and washing clothes along the canals. But, there is more.

Every moving object, whether bicycle, motorbike, car, or vendor has some kind of a horn, bell, or whistle always blaring, beeping, or singing. Even delicate school girls with wide rim hats and long flowing white school uniforms, pictures of serenity, sit tall on their bikes and never stop ringing their annoying bells. This is not road rage; the noise is simply a way to let everyone know something is approaching. The trick is not to become so unnerved that you lose your balance and fall off the road.

The constant “chuga chuga chug” of motor boats riding along the waterways adds to the cacophony of horns and whistles. In addition, every twenty yards or so, the rhythm of the bike ride is punctuated by shouts of “hello,” coming from under a tree, out of a canal, or behind a house. We are seen before we arrive. In this way, biking becomes a very engaging and interactive mode of travel in South Vietnam. By day two, I had given into this rhythm, fully enthralled by all the activity. We biked 31.63 kilometers (proudly clocked by Ellie).

On our second night we stayed on bedded down cots. A small boat ferried us by the light of the moon (most boats don’t have lights), from Vinh Long across the Co Chien River to An Binh Island. Not surprisingly, our hosts lived down a narrow dirt path following a small canal about 50 yards from the boat landing. Ellie keenly observed, “The Mekong Delta reminds me of Venice, Italy.” An apt comparison, I thought. In Venice, just beyond the obvious motion on the river and canals, narrow passageways between towering stonewalls disorient travelers and hide destinations from view. The same is true along the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of the Mekong Delta’s smaller waterways; thick foliage hovers over narrow canals, concealing the life within and the stars above until all sense of direction is lost.

Arriving after dark to our homestay was probably not such a good idea. Day or night, homestays force an abrupt change of reality. Even if only for a night, it is where you lay your head, no longer just passing by. Ellie and I had done this before, but it still isn’t easy. The night was black, the stars were lost through the coconut and banana leaves, and there was a minimal amount of electricity. A little late, Nam asked, “Did you remember to bring flashlights?”

This homestay was actually a bit more luxurious than we were accustomed to, with plumbing, including hot showers tucked behind the house where the animals congregate. (In retrospect, I can’t imagine Nam staying any place without a hot shower.) I had just convinced Ellie that it looked quite nice, bouncing on the cots to show that with a little imagination they had some spring. “But the walls have holes in them and the windows are simple cut outs, some with sheer curtains, some without. The door doesn’t really shut and the thatched ceiling is crawling with critters,” she exclaimed. “How could you think this is nice?” We had just moved beyond Ellie’s tearful glares when a young Fulbright scholar on break from teaching English in Hong Kong arrived with her visiting boyfriend from rural Pennsylvania, trying unsuccessfully to hold back the tears. (This homestay looked like it had four separate rooms, accommodating roughly eight to ten people.)

They were completely unprepared, mistakenly relying on the Lonely Planet’s guide to S.E. Asia for accurate travel advice. They arrived by passenger ferry to the island and hitched a ride on the back of motorbikes down dirt paths in complete and utter darkness. I said “hi,” trying to calm her nerves a bit with my Midwestern Americana drawl. “I think I saw a crocodile farm just over the burn. I’m not sure if they were really pinned in though,” she whispered in a panic, having completely lost all connection to rational thought. Her boyfriend tried to comfort, but having relied entirely on his girlfriend for directions until this point it was useless. They were a wreck!

After finding their airy accommodations, they sheepishly walked back to the main (and only real room) of the house. They wanted our guide to help with some translation. “Sure,” I said, “What are your questions? I’ll go find him.”

“Do you know how to get off the island?” she asked. “We’re leaving tomorrow at 9:00 a.m. on a private transfer to the mainland. Would you like to join us?” I offered. Blood drained back into her face. “Oh, thank you,” she said almost prayerfully.

The next morning a short detour took us to a terracotta factory. Our boat “captain” it seems was a guide trying to drum up some business. He spoke rather good English and apparently assumed the scholar and boyfriend were potential customers. I was thinking the same thing. The night before the boyfriend had told me they were headed to some ruin in Cambodia – wasn’t quite sure where, but his girlfriend knew. “Perhaps Angkor Wat in Siem Reap?” I suggested. “Sounds right,” he replied, clearly being a traveler for the sake of love and not because of a burning desire to see the eighth wonder of the world. After disembarking, Ellie and I made a quick bathroom stop, no more than five minutes as these are restrooms that do not encourage lingering, and in that time, unbelievably, our Fulbright scholar and boyfriend had fully paid the boat driver to serve as their English-speaking guide for the remainder of their travels, foregoing the ruins in Cambodia. Homestays can be a destabilizing experience, catching even the brightest by surprise.

We biked to Long Xuyen on day three, with a late afternoon excursion to a natural stork farm. And day four we abandoned the itinerary in search of that perfect secondary road experience. As Nam said, “Let’s have an adventure.” And, perfect it was. We followed a larger canal and peddled through more villages than on previous days, passing vendors selling dried and putrified fish, sweetened rice wrapped in banana leaves, and other delicacies. Of particular intrigue was a rather long stop at a Cao Dai Temple, in Can Dang of An Giang Province. This is a curious religion. According to the guidebook in our hotel, it was founded in the 1920s and combines the secular and religious philosophies of the East and West, based on séance messages revealed to the group’s founder, Ngo Minh Chiea. The temple is distinguishable from other places of worship by a huge, colorful eye painted brightly on a flag hanging over the front entrance. Inside, I indeed found influences from all parts of the world, including illustrations of what looked like Jesus Christ, Islamic preachings, and Buddhist shrines.

As we approached our last lap enroute to Chau Doc the landscape began to open up, with expansive vistas of rice fields and meandering canals. The vegetation is not as thick, dotted with sugar palm trees instead of coconut and banana trees, a sign that Cambodia is near. In Chau Doc, we climbed Sam Mountain, where I released two small birds for the price of 10,000 Dong and asked for a small blessing in return. The plateau at the top of the mountain was crowded with the apparent incongruity of two arcade games, three caged monkeys clamoring for food from visitors, a couple of food vendors, and an alter that was attracting most of the attention.

It turns out we had arrived on a festival day – Le Hoi Via Ba Chua Xu. The alter marked the spot where a statue of Ba Chua Xu (Lady Xu) used to stand many hundreds of years ago. According to legend, nine virgins carried her down the mountain to where she now sits inside a large miue, or temple, carrying her name. She is the object of worship on this festival day. I asked Nam to make a detour into town so we could see this lady and more of her worshipers. Ellie was able to inch her way through to the front of the mob, but I couldn’t make it past all the burning incense, offerings and people asking for blessings. If I hadn’t known we were in a temple, I might have thought it was a circus. The Lady Xu was fat, a likeness to Buddha, and dressed in every primary color plus a lot of pink. She had a halo flashing neon lights over her head. Tables upon tables of offerings were spread out around the temple complex, including fruit and vegetable, whole pigs with knives stabbing at their hearts (carving utensils for Lady Xu?), and paper money and clothes burning in a huge cauldron at the entrance. She must have been some lady.

After four days of peddling in the Mekong Delta area of South Vietnam, I finally appreciated an oft-repeated phrase in this part of the world. “The Vietnamese plant rice, the Khmers stand there and watch, and the Laotians listen to it grow.” Indeed, the hammocks strung up along roadside cafes in Vietnam are nearly always empty – they are a mirage, an illusion of repose and serenity. This is a workhorse of a country.

Beth Van Hoeven

With pains of regret, my ten-year old daughter Ellie and I left the comfort of La Veranda Grand Mercure Resort on Phu Quoc Island at 6:15 a.m. We had been backpacking through Thailand, Laos and Cambodia for nearly two months and needed this resort respite. So, after eight days of lounging by the pool, walking on the long undeveloped sandy beach, delighting in mixed green salads seasoned delicately with the perfect blend of oil and vinegar, lingering over dinners on the second floor veranda by the light of the moon as if this romantic setting was intended for us, relaxing to the soothing rhythm of massaging hands at the spa, and drinking tap water (a priceless gift!), La Veranda, the perfect blend of charm, comfort, amenities, and pampering without an ounce of stuffiness was not an easy place to leave. An hour or more later the bus dropped us off at the harbor in Vietnam’s southern most village of An Tho, where we boarded the Super Dong to Rach Ghia.

The day before there had been some confusion over our transport to the main island. We had purchased tickets through the hotel’s front office clerk, Miss Vi, on a fast boat to the mainland. Now, it appeared that the motor on our boat was in a state of disrepair. Miss Vi and her associate, Mr. Hao, reported that there were no more available seats on any boats leaving the island. “Very difficult situation,” they said. “You are on standby.”

I became a little suspicious with this news because Mr. Hao then whispered so that only I heard, “If you had bought the tickets through me and not Miss Vi you would not have had this problem.” I was struggling to understand how games might be played for what amounted to just over $1.00/ticket in commission — probably just my paranoia. The plan was to meet Mr. Hao at the harbor at 6:15 a.m. the next morning, when he would “try to negotiate” our way onto the only other 8:15 a.m. fast boat (no doubt at a higher price for both tickets and commission).

With the news, I quickly considered my options. I had to leave Phu Quoc (even though the lure to stay another day at La Veranda was tempting). We had arranged for a van with bicycles, guides, and a tight itinerary, which included 78 kilometers of biking after disembarking at Rach Ghia. There was always the slow boat. From what I had read it would take about 8 hours and drop us off approximately 90 kilometers from our intended meet-up location. I thought, “That would do,” and chuckled to myself as I realized that Mr. Hao had met his match (if in fact there was something suspicious going on). Then with a most determined appeal and so both heard, I explained to Mr. Hao and Miss Vi, “If I cannot secure two tickets on another fast boat today, I will take the slow boat. I will need to know by 4:00 p.m. so that I can make the necessary arrangements for the slow boat (which I repeated with emphasis).” I held back a smile as a look of panic crossed their faces. Mr. Hao said, “I think not so good for Ellie. Too hard.” I thought, “If they only knew what I’ve put Ellie through.” But Ellie, with her blond locks and fair skin has been my ace in the hole more than once on this trip.

Later in the day and much before 4:00 p.m., Ms. Vi found us poolside and said, “You are very, very lucky. You have tickets on the Super Dong tomorrow.” We exchanged smiles and I expressed my utmost gratitude.

Beth Van Hoeven

After some self-guided strolls to nearby villages we began a three-day adventure with the eco-tour “Green Discovery Company.” Day 1 was a moderately easy bike ride through the Luang Namtha valley to get a feel for this mysterious region. Then, on days 2-3 we ventured deep into the Nam Ha Protected Area (NPA) to visit the Akha village, Ban Nam Lai. In all, we visited four different villages–Black Tai (Tai Dam), Lanten, Tai Lue, and Akha. Each village practiced a different religion–Buddhist, animist, a form of Taoism, or ancestor worship, and spoke a different language–a couple written, others only oral.

On our 2-day trek, Ellie and I had three guides, representing the Black Tai, Khmu, and Akha ethnic groups. Needless to say, communication was less than perfect, not only for us, but also for our guides. This meant that when things of interest were communicated to us it was like playing the old game of “telephone”; it often went through three translations (e.g. Akha–Black Tai–Lao) before it reached us in English! But we managed o.k., and so did the guides despite their diversity, a fact that suggests to me that although the Luang Namtha valley may not be a “melting pot”, it does seem to know something important about tolerance. Today, Laos has a population of 5.62 million with four major ethnolinguistic categories – representing over 100 ethnic groups.

Green Discovery advertised our 2-day trek as one where we would learn about “birds, animals, plants and trees of the forest.” This may have been possible if we spoke Lao. But, I’m not sure our guide even knew the names of plants and animals in his own language. Guides are hired because they speak some English, not because they have any particular knowledge of plants or animals. Instead, we learned about spirits – there are many in the deep forest. Our guide, a Black Tai and animist, cautioned us along the way about the presence of the forest’s “bad spirits.” They hide in termites’ nests and water buffalo mud holes, are conjured up to appear when a villager deigns to pack bananas and firewood together or mistakenly grabs a root hanging down from the forest’s green sky. In short the bad spirits are everywhere. We stopped for lunch in a small bamboo shelter along the way. Animist crosses, called “Taleos,” or “eagles eyes,” hung from the ceiling protecting this small enclosure from harm.

After hiking through several hidden poppy fields, we arrived at Ban Nam Lai around 5:00 p.m., with just enough time to leave our packs in the camp’s “lodge” and visit the village. Exhausted and blistered we tried to digest our short-term reality before the sun set at 6:00 p.m. Calling this a “lodge” without any further description was misleading to the point of a breakdown in tears, being scared out of your wits, and shockingly inaccurate. The Akha “lodge” is a typical Akha-style one-room, thatched roof house, with a dirt floor, no electricity, visiting rats vying for dinner, all of which we shared with our guides under mosquito nets with more holes than net on a wooden platform along one side of the house. The toilet was a hole behind the house. Indeed, we were given the promised “authentic experience.”

Before dark we walked through this village, which consists of 47 one-room thatched roofed homes and about 360 people. We offered a small gift to the Akha village “boss,” and learned more about Akha traditions. There are about 90,700 Akha people living in Laos, consisting of many sub-groups distinguishable by clothing as much as anything. Their spiritual beliefs include the Akha “way of life,” animism, and ancestor worship. The Akha originated in Yunnan or Tibet and migrated south into Thailand and Laos about 200 years ago. With no written language, a strong oral tradition has helped sustain their identity and history. An Akha Village is recognizable by its village gate (“law kang”), which is the mythological separation between human and spirit worlds.

To our eyes, however, the most recognizable characteristic of this Akha village was the sight of about a dozen 3 x 6 feet thatched-roof huts on high stilts. According to our guide, once a boy turns 14 or 15 years old, his parents build him this tiny room high above village life, where he spends his nights until he has impregnated a young girl who then becomes his wife.

Although we spent most of our two-days hiking through the forest, the experience had little to do with the trek and more to do with the Akha hill village and its dependence on the forest. So much of what we witnessed was unimaginable, but by the time we lay our heads down, I began to understand why all the ancestral spirits live with their mortal families, who take care to feed and nourish them every ten days. The spirits keep everyone safe and protected from all the evil lurking in the forest. That thought provided some small bit of reassurance, as Ellie and I held tight to each other all night.

Our time spent in Luang Namtha made clear that the differences among Laos’ ethnic groups are slight compared to what they have in common — poverty. The headdresses, traditional clothing and silk weavings are all quite beautiful, but their colors are dulled when seen in contrast to the reality of village life. The Luang Namtha valley will be transformed with the completion of the airport and highway, although I’m not sure how. Hopefully there are eagles’ eyes protecting the villages from any further demand on their precious natural resources – which is all that keeps them alive.

Beth Van Hoeven

The Luang Namtha Valley, tucked in the far northwestern corner of Laos, is going through radical change. This is a valley where electricity doesn’t yet reach from Vientiane, but from nearby China, there is more chatter about opium than the government’s policy of genocide against the Hmong ethnic group, and the only way to get here is by a long, winding bus ride or a slow boat up or down the Nam Tha River, a tributary of the Mekong. But, like a tiger patiently lying in wait, there are signs that the valley is closing in on at least one of its targets – tourists. Droppings in the form of a highway stretching from China to Thailand and an airport in Luang Namtha are visible and nearing completion. There are a couple seedy, but connected Internet cafés in town. Green Discovery, an eco tour company based out of Vientiane, is offering treks, bicycle rides, or kayak trips to local villages, all of which attempt to avoid (although it is impossible) any signs of the unscrupulous felling of trees. There is no doubt that this valley is preparing for the moment when it can pounce on the “farang.”

Ellie and I have been here for six days. We are staying at The Boat Landing, a lucky six kilometers out of town. We came here to see the various ethnic groups populating this part Laos. Before long, however, I was also staying for the food. The Boat Landing sits on the banks of the Nam Tha River and offers views of villagers taking nightly baths or washing clothes. It’s simple, and at $32.00 per night (including breakfast), the highest priced lodging around. But, the food is anything but simple. It would be showered with five star ratings anywhere else in the world – assuming it could find the ingredients. Our most extravagant meal, which included a large “BeerLao,” was about $13.00 for two.

Here are some entries from the menu:

Lahp Chicken, duck, fish, pork or tofu — Lahp is to the Lao as hamburger is to Americans. Lahp is made of minced meat mixed with roasted sticky rice, mint, basil, green onions, chili as well as local seasonings.

Soop – Chicken or tofu stewed with cilantro, mint and lime juice. Soop is everywhere. It is soup without the liquid.

Sa Low Chicken, duck pork or tofu – Sa is the northern version of Lahp, made with banana flower, lime juice, mint, basil and other local herbs. The Muang Sing Tai Leu version, in addition to the above flavors, adds tingly Mak ken and yerm leaves.

Mak Gawk – Chili Paste. Mak Gawk is a tart forest fruit.

Moke – Fish, Chicken or Duck steamed with lemon grass, galanga, chili, red onion, garlic, basil, shallots, and fennel.

Aw Lahm – Pork, Chicken, Duck or Tofu stewed with eggplant, chili pepper, rattan shoots, banana flower, pumpkin shoots, lemon grass, fennel, shallots, basil. The menu cautions that if you see pieces of wood in your Aw Lahm, please don’t eat them. This is a spice called “Mai Sakhan,” a forest vine.

Beth Van Hoeven

Went to sleep last night under blue mosquito netting to the sound of soft jazz wafting over the cool January night air in northeast Thailand. The saxophone and its music maker were nowhere in sight, but its so sweet string of improvisation rocked us all to sleep in this little community of wooden rooms on stubby stilted legs overlooking the Mekong River. Unexpected friendships blossom in places like Nong Khai, Thailand, where people come to linger.

Upon arrival to S.E. Asia about two weeks ago, the first person Ellie and I met was a gentleman from Michigan, U.S.A., with whom we shared a ride to our nearby hotel. It was about 2 a.m. As we waited in the registration line we briefly exchanged little bits of information. I’m a curious sight with my overloaded backpack carrying essentials for our three-month trip – a backpacker with things, a mother laden with a treasure trove of medical supplies determined to return Ellie without incident to her father. He was here on business. In comparison, he seemed too perky. Perhaps he had the benefit of sleep in a first class seat. But as we waited a bit longer in line together, it became clear he was simply happy to be here. He travels all over Asia, and while he agreed that jet leg is no fun, he reflected, “ I can’t stop; I need to keep coming back to see all the friends I’ve made.” He added, “They’re just such great people.” Although not mentioned, I could tell he wasn’t talking about fellow Americans but rather Thais, Vietnamese, Mongolians, and many other nationalities. He had been drawn in by these other cultures and wasn’t going to let go. I thought to myself that he was really a traveler disguised as a businessman.

Last night, here at Mut Mee in Nong Khai, a young woman from Switzerland joined us at one of the two outdoor tables with Internet connections. The cord didn’t quite make it from the plug to her laptop computer. We spent a few minutes repositioning the table so we could snug up against the wooden beam with the outlets. She was petite and soft spoken. But as soon as she was situated, maybe even before, certainly before introductions, she asked us where we were traveling. When we said Cambodia, she asked us to come visit her. The invitation was a little different than when someone typically makes such an offering. Or was she asking for an offering from us?

She wanted us to come see where she worked. “The kids would love Ellie,” she smiled. “You could spend a day helping me in the classroom, playing games, coloring pictures…whatever, it doesn’t matter,” she said still smiling and quite serious about the offer. Still before introductions, she asked where we were going in Cambodia. With my reply, her face looked concerned. Apparently from Siem Reap it would be a long, bumpy bus ride. “How long?” I asked. “I don’t know,” she replied, as if it might not be something even she would consider. “The roads from Phnom Penh are better,” she suggested. “But, come from Siem Reap, you’ll have a great time.” “While you’re there, we can go to the village and visit children, many of whom are HIV positive and have parents dying of AIDS.” She repeated her invitation, “Stay two or three days, more if you like.” A play date in Cambodia.

Funny thing is, we just might go. We stopped to exchange e-mails, still without introductions. But from her e-mail address, I knew I was talking to Jenny. Not wasting time, Jenny opened Tean Thor’s website, the NGO for which she works in Battambang and showed Ellie pictures of the children she teaches. Ellie liked the photographs, and Jenny’s gentle coaxing. She announced with a 10-year old’s certainty, “Sounds like fun. I’d like to go.”

In contrast to my friendships in New Jersey, which are carefully nurtured and evolve over time, friendships found in route spring up in an evening. Never mind that I’m 47, Jenny at 21 is just barely 2 years older than my son, and Ellie is 10. Never mind that Jenny, like all the other backpackers here seem to practice meditation and yoga, go to bed at 10 p.m. and carry water bottles everywhere, the tall, over-sized 1.5 litre bottles, while I’m resorting to Chang beer and Ben-Gay for healing. It’s a different scene than my 20-something years. But, if we go to visit Jenny in Battambang, a bond will be formed that will last a lifetime even if we never meet again.

Last night as we just finished dinner, Tulli, a 9-year old from Australia, came bounding over from another table to introduce herself. Shortly after, her mom, Kathy, joined us. Within minutes we planned a bike ride for the next day, about 20 kilometers there and back, to Sala Keoku, a vast network of towering concrete sculptures created by one man, Boun Leus Sourirat, in honor of his Buddhist teacher. Journalist, Roger Warner, describes the sculptures in his article, “Asian Sculptors Make the Meaning of Life Concrete,” as follows:

It was amazing. It was like nothing I had seen before as – not the Millesgarden in Stockholm or Vigeland Park in Oslo or sculpture gardens in the United States, like the one at the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum. This was an altogether different kind of enterprise, if size counts for anything, it was world-class.

Indeed, these statues, which are more like buildings in size, are a wonder.

It was a magical day, weaving through Nong Khai on our rickety bikes, passing through the large market filled with flavors for all the senses, stopping to watch a cock fight we stumbled upon by chance, spying new born puppies behind a wat, and discovering that the entrance to the samsara-cycle enclosure at Sala Keoku is through a large concrete vagina, which provided endless chuckles and whispers between Tulli and Ellie for the remainder of the day. Samsura is the Buddhist concept of a wheel of life, an endless cycle of improvement to make merit and lessen suffering in the next life. It begins with conception.

Tomorrow we end this leg of our trip, crossing over the Friendship Bridge into Laos, a new culture, a new beginning. But we are bridged to what we’ll leave behind in Thailand by friendships sprung out of uncommon journeys and chance meetings that require little, if any, introduction.

Beth Van Hoeven

bvanhoev@waltzingmatildatravel.com

Lamai Homestay is about 6 hours north of Bangkok by bus in the northeast region of Thailand known as Isan. If not careful, the bus driver will go right past Ban Sida and you’ll find yourself an hour and half further north at the scheduled bus stop, Khon Kaen. The home stay is another 10 minutes down a dirt road in the small village of Ban Kho Phet.

Our host is a welsh ex-pat who dresses (if you could call it that) in shorts with side pockets for his cigarettes and otherwise remains bare-chested, showing off his lean torso and smattering of tattoos. He has thinning, shoulder-length gray hair with a slight curl at its ends. Jimmy retired to Thailand about ten years ago and met Lamai, our hostess, in Pattaya shortly after she ran away from home. Together they now have a daughter, Lizzy, and a plot of land in Lamai’s childhood village. Jimmy seems both generous of heart and honorable, in a pragmatic kind of way.

Unlike the village homes built on stilts so as to keep the cows safely tucked under the floor boards at night, Jimmy and Lamai’s home is made of cement at ground level. But that’s not all that distinguishes their home from the drab wooden shacks in the village. Much like an antique bizarre, every inch of their ground is covered with plants, patios or walkways displaying colorful mosaics of stone and tiles, Buddha statues, small ponds, spirit houses, hammocks, thatched roof salons with bamboo furniture, pagodas, fountains, and much more that the eye misses as it searches for a place to rest.

Ellie and I are here for five days to learn more about village life. Never more than 6 at a time, guests can focus their stay on such things as silk spinning and weaving, bamboo and raffia craft making, food foraging with village elders or more cultural excursions including the less traveled but significant Phi Mai archaeological site. We chose food foraging, which sounds perfect for a 10 year old. Since the village and its outlying “suburb” consist of about 150 people, it turns out Lamai is distant relative of nearly everyone. The village elder who guided us through our mini food foraging tutorial is Lamai’s mother, who looks to be about 80 (but is only 53 or 54 according to Lamai) in her soft white-rimmed hat and hoe used as a staff when not digging.

The rice fields sit on the edge of town and provide for virtually every need. Arriving a month into the dry season, our food foraging in the rice fields consists primarily of digging for crabs and scorpions, unleashing ants from their mounds, spying bees’ nests for honey, picking mulberry leaves for the silk worms, and learning how a simple plastic coke bottle can be used to catch shrimp in the irrigation canal. The scorpions and crabs were later served for dinner, panned fried until they popped and flavored with a hint of lime.

The topic of land ownership remains unclear. There seems to be a lot of 99-year mortgages, which children inherit but never expect to pay on their 20 baht/day earnings. The debt increases or land diminishes as calamitous events happen in the life of a family.

Jimmy, not wanting Lamai’s extended family to be dependent on his generosity, assisted the family in acquiring title to 10 or 20 times the average rice field of 2 or 3 acres. By doing so, he has enriched the entire village, because with its communal ethos at work, no one in the village ever lacks for food source as long as Lamai’s family is around.

Jimmy further helped by convincing Lamai’s family to relinquish enough land so that he could bring in heavy machinery and dig an irrigation canal to retain water. Thus unlike the rest of the village, Lamai’s family can now irrigate their land year round using a long cylindrical metal pump powered by a hand-cranked. When not cultivating rice during the rainy season, every conceivable vegetable but potatoes flourishes on the ridges separating the parcels of rice fields. The bounty is available to whomever needs it.

In the meantime, the rice fields provide much more than rice for each family. It turns out that every season when rice is sowed hundreds of baby fish are also thrown into the seasonal retention basins. After three months, the rice is harvested and so are the fish. A hole is dug in the mound of dirt separating each field and nets capture most of the fish as they try to swim through. As the water recedes, the remaining mudskipper type fish (that look like catfish to me) use their fins and skirt across ground to the next watering hole until they are eventually caught or die.

Since hundreds, probably thousands, of fish are caught at once when the rice is harvested, the villagers throw some on their roofs to dry and the rest are put in big stone pots where they are left to putrefy. For variety, the lids are removed so that flies can deposit eggs, providing a bit of maggot-enhanced zest to the overall flavor. Putrefied fish is considered a delicacy, particularly when aged, much like a good malt whiskey.

At this point in the growing cycle, the leftover rice stalks are still in the ground, looking much like Kansas wheat fields during harvest season. The green is gone and the golden hue has set in. And while Lamai’s mother digs for scorpions, Lamai, all 48 kilos, nearly barefoot with plastic shoes half on and half off and an uneven skirt carrying subtle stripes, looks like she so completely belonged. She melts into the rice fields like an antelope on an Africa plain. She looks so content and at peace I couldn’t help wonder why she ran away from home in the first place. There is undoubtedly much more than scorpions and crabs burrowing deep below the surface in rural Isan. Although, to my foreign eye, this little village of Ban Ko Phet looked golden.

Beth Van Hoeven

bvanhoev@waltzingmatildatravel.com

A close friend recently asked me: “Beth, why are you and your daughter taking this three-month adventure to South East Asia at this time?” hinting that I might be trying to escape another long northeastern United States winter. Her question was probably whispered among many friends. So I thought my first post might try to explain not only why I’m making this trip, but why I travel at all. What follows is a partial response to her question.

I am surrounded by family and friends, including a supportive husband (as hard as that sometimes is for him) and three growing children. By any standard, I have the perfect life. Yet, I am always a little unsettled, constantly searching for places to go, sometimes for real and sometimes made up, all of which take me far away from home. (I can’t wait to meet George Clooney so I can tell him about the incredible places we’ve traveled together.)

One might say I am possessed by the desire to travel. Usually, that travel includes my family. Together with my children and husband, we have traveled to many different countries, such as Canada, Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Chile, Greece, Italy, the Shetland Islands, Morocco, Kenya, South Africa, Namibia, Japan, Australia, Alaska (a wild frontier like no other and so included as if it were a different country), and Pella, Iowa (my hometown and like another country to my New Jersey born and bred children).

But, I also crave the adventure of solo travel. My husband lets me slip away to Alaska now and again to enjoy a fly fishing trip down some wild river. But, the reality is that with children ranging in age from 10 to 19, it is hard to slip away. So, I am doing the next best thing, leaving my two oldest at home with my husband, and taking my youngest with me. Once kids hit 11 or 12, it becomes nearly impossible to issue unsupported dictates. “Because mom says so,” doesn’t cut it any more. And frankly, I had no legitimate reason for wrestling them away from friends and everything that was safe and comfortable except, “it will somehow forever change you.” But, by making the trip now, I could still take my 10-year old before the teenage years set in. And the idea of sharing this adventure with Ellie seemed right.

I researched this trip for a year. At times, it consumed me, to the point that I felt as if I’d already been to Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia. The truth is that I almost enjoy the preparation as much as I do the travel itself. It is certainly a safer way to travel – vicariously, through other’s blogs or books or pictures. You don’t have to deal with the inevitable traveler’s diarrhea, the occasional food poisoning from a rancid piece of meat or fish, the scare of malaria, pre-travel inoculations, and the weariness that can overcome you when you travel with a loose itinerary.

But, ultimately, if you don’t go, you miss out on what I can only describe as a traveler’s high. It is that moment when you are awestruck by what your eyes are telling you, or you are mesmerized by a stranger’s life that has been unexpectedly shared with you, or you realize that your understanding was so limited without experiencing it for real.

In Rosemary Mahoney’s book, “Down the Nile,” she describes wanting to see the Nile River, not just from a cruise boat, “but to sit in the middle of it in [her] own boat, alone.” If you’re a traveler, you understand.

When Ellie was 3, we took the kids to Alaska for the second time. I designed a trip in which we were taxied to an uninhabited island with kayaks and camping supplies just beyond the mouth of Glacier Bay. We spent our days kayaking in the Icy Straits among breaching whales and curious sea lions. With the help of a guide, we managed to stay clear of surfacing whales. It was a dreamy experience, with a hint of danger, singing to the wind using kelp as microphones, and banking to look for wild berries along the way. But, what still makes me shiver with awe is what we experienced at night – totally unexpected.

The first night, in my two-person tent with Ellie holding tight, I swore we were within inches of a battle between two grizzlies. I was paralyzed with fear. The ground shook. The wind moaned. After surviving the night, the following morning our guide patiently instructed me that what I heard was the constant breaching of whales from afar (and, by the way, grizzlies hadn’t been spotted on the island for years, if ever.). I needed to see this. So, the next night, I perched myself on the beach straining to see these beasts that must be within reach, certainly within the eye’s reach. So much power, so much thunderous noise, and in the light of an Alaskan summer sky, I could not see the whales. Yet, even at a distance, I felt their strength rising up through the ground on which I sat, humbled. There is not a blog or a picture or a book that could have taken me to that beach on that night.

There are many reasons why I travel; being humbled or awestruck by something totally unexpected is certainly one of them. We say good-bye tomorrow, leaving from one of my favorite spots in the world, Moonlight Basin, in Big Sky, Montana. The rest of the family heads back east, while Ellie and I fly west.

Beth Van Hoeven
Big Sky, Montana
bvanhoev@waltzingmatildatravel.com

My wife and I recently returned from Cameroon, West Africa, just in time to read the New York Times “Best Places to Go in 2008” list. Bummers! Cameroon didn’t make the cut again. Savvy travelers, however, will know that the “Republic of Cameroon” is considered a microcosm of the entire African continent, and thus worth visiting. If it’s a T.E. Lawrence-like desert experience you crave, Cameroon has it. Ditto: high peak mountains, bio-diverse rainforests, wild life preserves (esp. gorillas and elephants), indigenous peoples (e.g. Baka and Bagyeli “pygmies”), birding options (Africa‘s best), water falls, fishing lakes and rivers, beach resorts, etc. In fact, if you have the money there are small planes daily departing the capital, Yaounde, or the major port city, Douala, that will fly you directly to these more-or-less classy tourist destinations without having to mess with crowded busses, speed bumps, pot-holed roads, goat herders, peasant farmers balancing all manner of goods on their heads, among other such inconveniences.

Since our retirement a decade ago, my wife and I have combined our teaching professions with travel opportunities, but now as international volunteers, and generally from six months to a year. So far we have lived and taught in university cities in the Philippines, Mexico, South Korea, Lithuania, and most recently, as noted above, for six months in Kumba, Cameroon, a small town of 150,000 in the country’s Southwest Province.

Cameroon! Portugal conquered and named the territory in the 15^th century, calling it Cameroes, the Portuguese word for “lobster“, a crustacean that apparently was both very large and plentiful in the region’s coastal rivers a few centuries ago. Subsequently, the country was colonized, in order, by Germany, France, and England, gaining independence in 1960 and retaining its original name. Cameroon: Cameroes: “lobster”: it’s a good metaphor we think for the country as we experienced it. Like fresh lobster meat, there is much to like about Cameroon–from the natural beauty, resources, and tourist destinations noted above, to the dance, music, arts and crafts, cultural and kinship traditions of the people, which we judge to be equal to any in Africa. We experienced and savored much of that, including trips to the country’s primary tourist attractions, traveling by bus or car with students who guided us to food and lodging within budget. But, of course, “cameroes” can be hurtful if their pinchers strike, and in Cameroon today roughly 90% of its 15 million people are stricken and gravely hurting. The 2006 United Nations Human Development Index, based on a combination of economic, demographic, and educational data, lists Cameroon 144^th among 177 countries. An entry from our journal dated September 5, 2007, helps make the point:

Three rain-drenched days into the upper-level ethics course a student stood tall in the back of the room and asked, “Why are you here?” Before I could respond he continued, “I’m the son of a peasant farmer from the north who never earned more than a dollar a day. Like my father, I’ve never owned a book, a bike, a car, or a suit of clothes. Our one room house had no stove, refrigerator, or running water. Endless poverty is my destiny, the destiny of my village, and of every student in this room. We didn‘t choose it. We don‘t want it. We can‘t change it. Clearly the world is not working for our people. Why?” Nothing in the readings or lecture should have prompted the student‘s question. But for him, its time had come. Like Shakespeare in King Lear, he could not stop himself from pouring out the question that poverty brutally raises wherever it exists: “What does one need to be human?” This must become the question that we work on in the course!!!

As an American teacher it’s difficult to listen to such remarks, or to hear the pathos in the student’s questions. But not to listen or hear or see is to miss the whole point of travel in developing countries, or so it seems to us. The student, of course, spoke for the masses in Cameroon, mostly uneducated peasant farmers, many who suffer from malaria or AIDS, and all who survive somehow on subsistence earnings, have little access to health care, cannot afford education for their children, and are without any apparent exit from their condition. The cause of this, as in all of Africa, has a long history and is complex and varied, but surely much of it is the consequence of Cameroes corrupt, unjust, and dysfunctional government. And yet. . . And yet, despite all of the above, the people we came to know and love in Kumba, found strength in their ancient traditions to believe that tomorrow will be no worse than today, and this somehow was sufficient to move them to song and dance.

Jim and Mary Van Hoeven

jmvanhoeven@aol.com

My wife and I are retired teachers, she in English and I in philosophy and ethics. We are also lifelong travelers. Fortunately, most of our careers were tied to colleges and other institutions with strong international programs or branch campuses in Mexico, England, Switzerland, Japan and South Korea. Through these teaching and travel opportunities we came to believe that in the end it is the reality and privilege of cross-cultural experiences and relationships that will finally save us all!!