Cambodia - No, It's Not Just a Place to Pick Up a Cute Orphaned Child

Place: Siem Riep, Cambodia

Language: Khmer

Hello: Johm riab sua/sua s'dei (jome riab su/su sduee)

Thank you: Aw kohn (aw gowne)

Standing at a whopping 5'2", with normal sized lips and nowhere near a 36DD, Angelina Jolie I am not. However, I did fall in love with Cambodia and, if HK Immigration would allow me to smuggle in one of those adorable dark skinned Asian children, I would have.

I'm not going to lie, before moving here, I had no idea where Cambodia was and I probably wouldn't have known it was an actual country if Maddox didn't exist. I'm not dumb, I just never had world geography in school and the existence and location of third world Asian countries just didn't factor into my life in the States.

So, for those of you in my same boat, Cambodia is a small country sort of squished between Thailand and Vietnam. Its capital is Phnom Penh and unfortunately, its history is quite a bloody one. I had heard about the Khmer Rouge but I really didn't know where it was. Well, it was in Cambodia. Different estimates say that the communist Khmer Rouge rebels assassinated between 1 and 3 million people out of a population of 7 million. It is hard to know for sure because the rebels would bury thousands of executed bodies in mass graves called the killing fields. It's embarrassing to admit that I really didn't know much about this genocide until I visited but now I do and I am in awe of the resilience of Cambodians.

The average worker earns $30/month and many women and children are pushed into prostitution. But despite their bloody past and destitute present, Cambodians are a fiercely proud, hard-working and happy people. They are hopeful for the future and you often see children playing and laughing in seemingly dismal conditions. It's hard not to be thankful for what you have and want to give something, anything, to the locals. During our 2 full days in Siem Reap, we were approached by dozens of children selling little trinkets, water, books, etc. for $1 each. It took all the willpower I had to just buy 2 bottles of water at a time, knowing that if I bought from each child, I wouldn't be able to climb to the top of the temples!

We went to Siem Reap in Cambodia, again tempting the valid threats of malaria, dengue fever, typhoid fever, et. al., to see one of the wonders of the world: Angkor Wat. Not knowing that Cambodia existed, I didn't know about Angkor Wat either but I did my research (read: I watched Tomb Raider) before I got there and I wasn't disappointed!

The ancient temple ruins of Angkor are what remains of massive temples built for the gods from 900 and 1200 AD. The most famous is Angkor Wat which is the largest religious building in the world and one of the ancient wonders of the world. Its magic is apparently best captured at sunrise when the sun rises up from behind the grandiose temple but those of you who know about my nocturnal biorhythms know *that* wasn't going to happen, so we settled for 9am-ish. Not bad and definitely a much less grumpy experience for Marc.

Cambodians are so proud of Angkor Wat that it is featured smack dab in the middle of the Cambodian flag.

Angkor Wat was first a Hindu shrine dedicated to Vishnu, then it became a Buddhist temple and you can still see Buddhist monks in their regal orange robes. For all the fun I poke at Marc for his trigger-happy finger, I seriously think he could win a photography contest with this pic. It's one of my all-time favorites.

Of course, not to be outdone, I managed to nab the camera for a minute and snapped this one outside Angkor Wat.

There wasn't a shortage of amazing picture-worthy shots so we actually had a little contest going on who could take the best picture. And as I told Marc, it's not how many pictures you take (ahem Mr. 230 pictures in 2 days!), it's the *quality* of the pictures. So, as usual, I could just post an entire blog with nothing but National Geographic worthy snaps, but after a while even these magnificent temples all start to look alike so I'll just post a few of the very best and let you guys decide on a winner.

As regal and imposing as Angkor Wat was, my absolute favorite was Ta Prohm. The temples here have these huge silk cottonwood and strangler fig trees seemingly growing from within the ruins. Their long roots crawl spread across stones like a rash and it's hard to tell which was there first, the temple or the trees. Their symbiotic relationship seems to imply they both established their territories at the same time as at some points it seems that the temple might crumble were it not for the trees, and vice versa. For you Lara Croft fans, you may recognize this shot. It was when Angelina first started seeing the ghostly children scampering into the tombs.

If you can't picture it, maybe this pic will help. If you squint a little bit, tilt your head to the left and imagine my "finger gun" is a real gun, you can see Lara Croft, waiting to pounce on some bad guys.

OK, so maybe not *all* of our pictures are award-winning photographs.

To give you a better perspective, check out this picture. Those roots are massive!

In some places, you had to look really hard to see some of the apsaras, or celestial nymphs, peeking out from between the roots.

Next up was The Bayon, or as I liked to call it for absolutely no reason other than I couldn't remember the name, The Banyan. The Bayon was the King's state temple and it is known for its towers with four divine faces smiling in meditation on each side. Remarkably, they all look like King Jayavarman VII who was in power at the time. Narcissistic much? There are 54 towers in total with a staggering 216 faces. Can you imagine people back 1,000 years ago making these things???!?!?

Here is a shot from afar, showing many of the still intact towers. Even though it is a national treasure and over a thousand years old, we got to walk all over this place, climbing steep steps without any guard rails whatsoever and popping in and out of the maze-like hallways that looked like they would collapse on us at any second.

Equally unprotected are the apsara carvings (left picture) and bas reliefs (right picture) which miraculously have survived inclement weather conditions and throngs of tourists' grimy hands.

Hope you enjoyed the pictures from our first day in Siem Reap. I will leave you with a video for you to watch while I slip away to the Philippines for a long weekend of diving. The video was taken on our trek up to the top of Phnom Bakheng (yet another temple) to watch the sunset. We were pretty tired from traipsing all day in the heat through the temples so we got a friend to take us up. Life lesson #481: Always ride on the first elephant in the line. Make sure to turn the sound up for optimal viewing. Enjoy!

Happy American Labor Day! Please Pass the Water Buffalo.

Greetings my loyal fan. I know you must be understandably upset about the degrading quality of my blogs and I sympathize. Since many of these trips happened months ago, I can only go by the vague recollection stored deep in my cranium. Sadly, I can't remember what I had for breakfast yesterday so the details of a trip long past are as "hazy" as Beijing air.

Alas, I recognize the deterioration of my writing style as well as the increasing length of time between posts, so in order to keep you, Mom, I mean my loyal fan base happy, I have taken a drastic step to remedy the situation:

I quit my job.

Now, you will no longer click on "Marc and Brina in Hong Kong" on your list of favorite websites and be met with a stale story on Malaysia. No siree Bob, I am ON it now. I will devote all my days to providing quality blog posts because THAT is how dedicated I am to you. Oh, and I hated my job to the point that I had taken to drawing sad faces on my calendar for every bad day I had at work. There were more frowny faces than smiley faces, so something had to be done.

Today is Labor Day in the US and, of course, we don't get that holiday here. We've already celebrated British Labor Day, Chinese Labor Day and Hong Kong Labor Day, I don't see why we can't tack on one more. That's OK, next week is Mid-Autumn Festival so we're going to the Philippines. Man, I need a vacation like a crack addict needs, well, crack. It's been TWO MONTHS people! Granted, we went to Shenzhen for a weekend to stock up on fakes and I went to Macau for a day trip last week, but that's nothing. As Marc's dad said, when we move back to the States, I'm going to throw rocks at Marc when we don't go out of town every month. He better learn to duck.

It's funny how, having been here a full year now, some of these crazy holidays are actually making sense! Remember Hungry Ghosts' Day last year? Well, they had it again this year and I was paying attention this time. Apparently, the older Locals burn paper money (no, not real paper money but like Monopoly Hong Kong Dollars) so that the ghosts of their ancestors can "use" the money to buy things they need in the afterlife. They better get with the times before I get there because I'm telling my descendants to burn paper Visa cards. They also burn food like oranges, in case the ghosts are hungry and perhaps have a slight case of scurvy. For the more important necessities, they burn paper replicas of items from the material world, again for use in the afterlife. These items can be bicycles, cars, refrigerators, even computers and mobile phones. The other day, I passed by a store that sells these replicas and I saw a replica of a window AC unit. Man, I feel bad for whoever's ancestor needs an AC UNIT in the afterlife, if you catch my drift.

In other news, Batman: The Dark Knight came out last month. Have you seen it? If you haven't, it is super awesome, you should go see it! You heard about it here first, ladies and gentleman. The part in the movie that shows Hong Kong is short but action-packed and most importantly, it shows Marc's office building and the Escalator where we walk every day. So what are you waiting for? Go!

You still here? Good because it is time for the always hilarious "This Only Happens to Marc and Sabrina" story of the week. About a month ago, as part of Brina's countdown to that awful time in a woman's life when she realizes she can no longer put a 2 in front of her age (sob), we went to an out-of-the-way beach on Lantau Island. You might think that the stretch of beach that we walked on where every man we saw was wearing a black mesh g-string leaving nothing (and I do mean nothing) to the imagination is the hilarious part of the story. But you'd be wrong.

Picture this: Marc and I are laying out on our beach blankets in the hot mid-afternoon sun. We've each fallen asleep reading our respective books when all of a sudden I, the lighter sleeper of the two, hear uncontrollable laughter from a crowd of people around us. Wanting to see what the commotion is about, I open one eye and see two large shadows near our blankets. I sit upright and realize the shadows are made by none other than a pair of water buffalo coming straight at us! I frantically wake up Marc and point, unable to make the words "Marc! Wake up! There are 2 large water buffalo coming our way!" come out of my mouth. He wakes with a start as the buffalo are walking by just 1 1/2 feet from us. Yes, the people on the beach were laughing at us, the sleeping gweilos that were about to be trampled by the rampant water buffalo. Man, it just doesn't get much stranger than that. Only in Hong Kong.

Don't Tell My Mom I Shot an AK47 in Vietnam!

In keeping up with our adventurous and slightly dangerous (in a calculated risk sort of way) travel style, we continued our tour of duty in Saigon by visiting the Cu Chi Tunnels. In the words of my mentor, Dave Barry, "No, I'm not making that name up."

The Cu Chi Tunnels is an underground tunnel network over 200 kilometers in length that the Viet Cong (the guys in the North) used during the Vietnam War. These tunnels are not for the claustrophobic or metabolically challenged. Here is a series of pictures showing our really skinny Vietnamese tour guide going into hiding:

See that hole in the ground about a foot long and maybe 5 inches wide?

That's right, he's going in it. Yes, this is a real life person, not a mannequin.

Then he pulls the lid over his head and PRESTO CHANGE-O, he is invisible. Seriously, you can't see him or detect that there is a trap door even if you were standing as close as we were.

Man those guys were sneaky. They would hide in these tunnels for weeks at a time, doing all of their business (and I do mean ALL of their business) without even alerting nearby troops of their proximity. Then, all of a sudden, they would pop out of their hiding spots and annihilate the enemy. We even got to go into the tunnels to see what all the fuss was about. Well, I say "we" but I really mean Marc, Andy and me because Aleks wussed out and wouldn't go in. I don't know why, it's not like they were cramped quarters or anything. Maybe she got freaked out by the fact that these tunnels have been carved into the ground and survived for decades despite erosion.

Look, even the shorties had to kneel down to get through! Seriously though, I don't blame Aleks, it was really dark and creepy in there. I can't imagine spending weeks in there with dozens or even hundreds of men waiting to attack.

In the middle of the thick jungle where the war was taking place, these hiding places made the Viet Cong practically invincible. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is when the Americans started dropped bombs. When you can't see who you are fighting, just blow the whole dang place up, right? Here is a crater left by a B52 bomb, it's big.

So, we had heard from one of Marc's colleagues that after the tunnel tour, you could go to a gun range and shoot off all sorts of guns, including AK-47's which are illegal in the US! He claimed that they even let his 14 year old son shoot an AK-47. We were psyched to hear about this. So, not to be shown up by some punk 14 year old, we all decided to give it a go (well, everyone except Aleks again), because seriously where else can you fire one of these bad boys? Mom, close your eyes.

Yes, you heard him correctly, he wants to use the automatic setting. So, I show him how it's done. Check out my face before I fire, it's priceless!

And not to be outdone, Andy joins in on the fun while Aleks soils her pants behind her gun-toting husband (excuse the expletive at the end).

Adrenalin pumping and considerably lighter in the wallet (man those bullets were expensive but totally worth it!), we got back on the bus to head back to Saigon. That night, we went to a fancy schmancy restaurant as a wedding present from Andy and Aleks.

The food was excellent, the ambiance elegant and everything was going so well until we went out to a bar for a nightcap and I started getting some serious hot flashes -- and it wasn't even hot outside! I was seriously thinking I was going through early menopause until all of a sudden, I dashed to the bathroom and proceeded to throw up the entire lovely meal we just had. Ugh, no fun. Man, I have no idea what happened but after the purge, I felt much better and thankfully, no one else seemed to have been affected the same way. Bedtime for Brina...

The next day, we checked Reunification Palace off our tourist sites to see checklist.

It used to be the White House of South Vietnam until the North won and drove tanks through these front gates to claim it as their own. Can you imagine having your Cheerios one morning and all of a sudden a huge tank comes barrelling through your front yard? The war was officially over after that.


We had some fun inside the Reunification Palace which is just a museum now. Here I am ignoring the rules and basically being a total goof-off. The sign on the desk is a bit small, it says "Don't Touch the Object." Luckily, we didn't get kicked out as visiting a Communist jail cell is not high on my list of things to do and places to see.

We putzed around the city for the rest of the day and the girls capped off the day with massages at the massage parlor next to the hotel. Wow, what an experience. We walked into the building and were led upstairs to a dark, open room where there were about a dozen people sitting in chairs with their masseuses contorting their bodies into positions I didn't know were possible! These little Vietnamese women were even walking on people's backs! It was like walking into the set of a really strange movie and wondering how you stumbled in there. Nonetheless, we sat for our 1-hour massages which were tame by comparison. I guess you really get the full treatment with the 2 hour deal. Relaxed and happy, we went back to the hotel to pack up for the trip back home.

When we arrived in Hong Kong, it was Marc's turn to get sick, so I played tour guide while he slept his bug away. Aleks, Andy and I went up to the Peak where Andy had fun with the light exposure settings on his camera. Check out the ghostly effect:

Aleks and Andy enjoyed the rest of their trip in Hong Kong while Marc and I had to work during the week. They did all the cool things to do in Hong Kong like Stanley Market, Dim Sum, shopping for camera stuff, Jade Market, trying a Chinese herbal medicine shop, seeing the wet markets up close and personal, the Laser Light Show and lots of other cool stuff that you can experience if you just come visit!*

*This ad is brought to you by the Sabrina and Marc's Campaign to Get Their Friends and Family to Visit Hong Kong, in conjunction with "Wow, We've Been Here for a Year and Only Had One Set of Visitors," a subsidiary of "What Are You Waiting For? Do You Need Us to Gift You Some Airline Miles?"

Goooooooood Morning, Vietnam!

Place: Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam

Language: Vietnamese

Hello: Xin chào (sin jow)

Thank you: Cám σn (come on)

As I mentioned in my Observations for First-Time Visitors to Asia post, the first brave souls to come visit us in Hong Kong were my friends, Aleks and Andy. Aleks was my roommate in law school and Andy is her husband. They are both Polish and love to travel just as much as Marc and I do. When I told her that I was moving to Hong Kong and would love to have them visit, they were quick to take us up on the offer despite the warnings about our "guest closet." Although they have traveled extensively through Europe, they had never been to Asia and boy were they in for some culture shock!

Aleks and Andy planned on a 2 week vacation and, hiring Marc and me as their travel agents, we planned their itinerary as follows: fly into Hong Kong and spend the night at Hotel Liner; depart the next day for Ko Samui and spend several relaxing days on the beach getting $5 massages; spend one night (or 2) in Bangkok and explore the city; meet Marc and Sabrina in Vietnam for some high intensity adventure travels; and finally round off the trip exploring Hong Kong for a few days. Yes, it was a whirlwind trip but I think they had a great time despite having some serious jetlag for the first 2-3 days. (Yes, we helped them out with our "secret weapon" but it still caught up with them in Thailand when Aleks almost fell asleep in her soup during dinner.)

[By the way, if you are thinking of hiring Marc and me as travel agents for your Asian adventure, let me warn you: we don't come cheap. We accept all forms of payment including Western toiletries and invitations to travel with you to other places in Asia.]

But alas this is blogsite is about Marc and Brina's Adventures in Southeast Asia, so let me fast-forward to the Vietnam portion of the trip:

We chose to visit Saigon because of its proximity to the Mekong Delta. Despite valid concerns of malaria, dengue fever, all variations of hepatitis, typhoid fever, Japanese encephalitis and amoebic dysentery, I wanted to see the villages that depend on the mighty Mekong for the daily needs. Having already been immunized for most of the aforementioned tropical diseases, we started our malaria pills 2 days before the trip, continued them throughout the trip (as well as our subsequent trip to Cambodia) and for a month thereafter. We also applied mosquito repellent with 98% DEET (who knew there was such a thing?) as if we were albinos applying 45 SPF sunscreen in Ecuador. Thankfully, we remain malaria-free 3 months later.

Arriving a night before Aleks and Andy, Marc and I were able to explore a little bit of the city and get our bearings. Vietnam was colonized by the French in the mid-19th century and consequently, it feels very much like a European city. Much of the older generation still speaks French; there are fantastic French restaurants all around the city; and some of the architecture is definitely European. They even have a Catholic Church named Notre Dame Cathedral. It is like a mini-me of the original:

Despite the European influence, it is still an Asian city and a communist country after all. I will admit, it is a bit strange to see the communist symbol of a hammer and sickle on flags lining the streets.

I will never fully understand the country's affinity with its venerable (and now deceased) leader, Ho Chi Minh, or Uncle Ho as the locals affectionately call him. His portrait is everywhere, including the main post office (see above pic) as well as the currency. Even though Saigon is in South Vietnam (you know, the ones that lost the war) and Ho Chi Minh was the leader of North Vietnam (the Viet Cong or the ones that won), the Saigonese still revere him. And although the locals still call it Saigon, the official name of the city is Ho Chi Minh City. Strangely enough though, we frequently found ourselves asking "WWUHD?" (What Would Uncle Ho Do?) and are contemplating making rubber bracelets to sell in Vietnam. I think we'll make a killing.

When our friends arrived, we immediately set out to satisfy Aleks' Vietnamese food cravings. She had a hankering for some traditional pho, a noodle soup made with rice noodles, sprouts, scallions, leafy green veggies and your choice of meat. The traditional pho has thin strips of beef brisket and tripe. Marc, the adventurous one, had a bowl with tripe and said he wouldn't even know that it was tripe if he didn't order it himself. Mmmhmmm.... I stuck to the safe chicken and instantly fell in love with Vietnamese food. Of course, it helps to go to the most famous pho shop in all of Saigon: Pho 2000. It is Bill and Chelsea Clinton's favorite as evidenced by their prominently displayed picture in the restaurant. We even sat at the same table!

After our near-brush with celebrity and fueled for the day ahead, we headed outside to make our way to the War Remnants Museum, a Lonely Planet "not-to-be-missed" attraction. We were soon accosted by some tri-shaw touts who assured us that they could take us to the museum for 15,000 Vietnamese dong. [Sidenote: Who decides to call their currency dong? It was the topic of much discussion on our trip but to preserve the sanctity of this blogsite and to spare the sensitive eyes and ears of our younger readers, I won't talk about it. Well, except to say that the boys were much amused by the recurring phrase "Is that some dong in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?" OK that's it, I promise.]

So, we mounted the tri-shaws and enjoyed a lovely ride through the city to the museum until we got there and those scammers said we owed them 115,000 dong! Oh, there were some harsh words thrown around and some Puerto Rican and Polish tempers flared but in the end, the boys allowed the tri-shaw drivers to rip us off and paid them the whole SIX U.S. DOLLARS that they claimed we owed them. Softies.

The War Remnants Museum is a sobering testament to the Vietnam War. By 1973, almost all of the US military troops left the country but not without leaving behind evidence of their involvement. US tanks, helicopters, war planes, missile launchers, guns and various other military paraphernalia were collected by the Vietnamese and are now displayed in the museum. Also displayed are disturbing photos of the crippling effects of Agent Orange, many of which showed children with malformed limbs and burnt skin. They also have a life-size exhibition of the prisoner of war camps, complete with photographs of torture techniques like waterboarding. Although a somewhat skewed (read: biased) view of the events that took place, I know we can't deny our involvement and the damage that our troops caused, but it was hard to stomach some of the pictures. Halfway through our visit, a group of about 100 Vietnam War Veterans (of the Vietnamese variety, not American) strolled through the courtyard, so we stopped and watched them for a while. This guy seemed to be a popular guy and he held court for about half an hour all the while resting his amputated leg on his cane:

After the museum, we needed something to lift our spirits, so we went shopping! Learning our lesson, we took a taxi to Ben Tranh Market where Marc and I taught Aleks and Andy the fine art of haggling. Together, we bought 4 or 5 North Farce backpacks (because you can't have too many) and some cool Vietnamese art. Our coolest purchase came the next day, though, when Marc and I bought a hand painted Vietnam War propaganda poster. I'm sure that the Commies weren't thinking that their brainwashing messages would be used as pop-art in some yuppies' house in the 2000's but we like it.

We also had to save Andy from the market ladies who groped him and shouted sweet nothings at him. "Meester, messter, you so handsome! Looky, looky! You married? I want to marry you! I show you good time!" After a few times of prying him loose from the ladies, Aleks was ready to go, so we shoved our way out of the crowded market and onto the street.

Saigon might was well be called City of the 3 Million Motorbikes, not even exaggerating. In a town of about 5.5 million people, just about everyone above legal driving age (and some below the legal limit) has a motorbike. Not ones to shy away from renting a scooter and making our way through someplace new, we quickly realized that it was too dangerous even if it had been legal for foreigners to rent them, which it isn't. Zooming past us at breakneck speed, not even feigning adherence to the traffic laws, if any, those motorbikes were everywhere! These bikes are not only a source of transportation for humans but also seemingly the only means of transporting any material you can think of, from ladders to huge panes of glass to live animals. Thousands of people die each year and just about everyone has been injured in a motorbike accident yet they keep riding. Here is short video but even it doesn't do the madness justice. Check out the guy at the beginning of the video who seems to be wearing a wooden box as he is driving.

The next day, we woke up early to meet our Mekong River tour guide. Even though we detest group tours, there are certain things you cannot do without hiring a guide, like driving 3 hours south to the Mekong River Delta and hiring a boat to cruise you down the river. Thanks to Marc's diligent research, we were the only people in our tour group aboard the luxury CaiBe Princess. Yes, I wore that ridiculous coolie hat all day. I was trying to blend in with the locals.

These guys really know how to do the Mekong right. On boarding, they served us tea and tropical fruit. Clockwise from the top: wax apple, dragon fruit, tea, rambutan, longans and, in the middle, ladyfinger bananas. Yum-o! They also gave us cool wet towels every time we got on the boat which was nice as we were sticky from the mosquito repellent and it was HOT out there.

First up, we visited the floating market. Although we missed the hustle and bustle of the early morning market in action, we did get to see the boats laden with goods. The way that it works is that farmers come from near and far with their harvest of produce that they want to sell. They live on the boat until all their merchandise is sold, approximately 2 weeks. This also gives them a chance to purchase food and supplies from other boats that are also at the market. Each boat puts a good-looking sample of its merchandise (like a plump watermelon) on a long pole at the front of their boat so that buyers know what they are selling. Then, after the morning rush is done, they tend to their daily chores like washing clothes or the boat, cooking, and tending to the children. They do everything on their home-away-from-home, including sleeping on hammocks strung in the boat.

All along the river banks, there are shantytowns and we could see their daily life as we rode slowly past their modest homes. The villagers that live along the Mekong are very poor and most homes don't have luxuries like electricity or running water. Instead, the villagers use the river for all their needs. The river serves not only as a source of water (albeit a dark shade of brown and full of God knows how many different types of bacteria), but also as a bathtub, sewer, the town dump, a wash basin for washing clothes, a navigable river to get to other towns and villages, you name it. Even though the poverty is stark, you see smiling, laughing children everywhere and it is clear that the locals are content. It really made me realize how good we have it just by living in a developed country.

As part of our tour, we got off the boat at several points to see village life up close. Our guide took us to see how coconut candies, popped rice and rice paper are made using very rudimentary tools. Nothing goes to waste. Even the husks of corn kernels are used as fuel to light the fire necessary to make rice paper.

We also had the opportunity to ride bikes along the river banks, passing school children on their bikes, until we got to a brick making factory. The bricks are made at the factory and then fired in the huge kiln (see pic on the left) for 15 days until they turn bright red and are ready to be sold.

While I was getting my brick-making lesson, Marc made fast friends with a pair of boys who were playing at the brick factory (OSHA? Child labor laws? What's that?). He showed them our fancy digital camera and they had a blast pressing the button to take a picture of themselves, then seeing their images on the viewfinder. I don't know which of the 3 kids in the picture to the right had the best time...

Those kids can take some pretty good self-portraits! I call this one "Me and Half of My Brother's Face."

Our tour concluded with lunch at a nice plantation house. We feasted our eyes and our bellies on the Vietnamese food art like this big scary fish with a pepper flower in its mouth. One thing is for sure, we did not go hungry on this trip!

Full and happy, we walked back to the van that would take us back to Saigon and Marc took some more pictures (surprise, surprise). I'll leave you with one of my favorites until I feel the urge to get off the couch from watching Olympics to write the second part of our Vietnam Adventure. I wouldn't hold your collective breath if I were you.

Melacca/Melaka, Tomato/Tomato (Part 2 of 2)

Place: Melaka, Malaysia

Language: Malay (and some Portuguese)

Hello: Apa khabar (apa kabar)

Thank you: Terima Kasih (terima kasee)

After a whirlwind first day in KL, we decided to head 1 1/2 hour out of town to a port town called Melaka. For such a small place, it sure has lots of spellings: Melacca, Malacca, Melaka, Melaca, etc. I'm going to go with Melaka. Don't worry, I hadn't heard of it either. My godmother, who lived in Malaysia and Thailand for 15 years and gives me wise advice like how to use the squat toilets, suggested it because having lived in Malaysia, she knew we would get bored if we spent all our time in KL. So, with the help of my colleague who hired a car for us for the day, off we went.

The ride down there was fairly uneventful until we got to the main town square and saw the tri-shaws. It seems that, like in many other Asian countries, the favored mode of transportation (particularly for tourists) involves a really old guy and some permutation of a bicycle decorated to within an inch of its life with fake flowers, Mardi Gras beads, stuffed animals, twinkle lights, you name it. It's like a competition for gaudiest transportation vehicle every day! After carefully inspecting each one, we chose our trusty steed complete with an awesome built-in CD player. Don't ask me where the power for the player and the speakers comes from because I don't have a clue. Maybe our driver conducts electricity when he pedals, who knows.

Melaka is an old Portuguese settlement and you can really see the Portuguese influence in some of the buildings. Nestled on the west coast of Malaysia, it is also a port town, so it really had a beach-town feel to it. I could smell the salty sea air as we took rode in our tri-shaw, stopping every once in a while to pop into a shop, historical site or a Chinese Buddhist temple. Honestly, I don't know how the Malay people don't have an identity crisis when they have Christian, Chinese, Portuguese, Buddhist, Indian, Dutch, Muslim, Hindu, British influences - all in one tiny port town! But it really did make for a fun ride around town.

I'm going to take a wild stab in the dark and say that this is the only Dutch windmill in all of Asia. I bet they even plant tulips around it when they are in season and if I didn't know any better, I would have thought I was in the Netherlands, except of course when we turned the corner and found ourselves in Chinatown.

This is a really neat picture that Marc took of a villager in his coolie hat washing the ornate roof of a Chinese temple.

I'll save you the many other pictures of the Chinese temples and monks since they are basically the same as the other ones I've posted. Apparently after you've seen 50 Chinese temples, they all start to look alike. Not that I'm jaded.

And right in the middle of the town was all the historical stuff. The sole surviving relic of the old Portuguese fort "A Famosa" is Porta de Santiago, an old crumbling gate dating back to 1521. It was approximately 528 degrees at this point, so we quickly took some pictures and headed up to higher ground where it was cooler.

At the top of Bukit St. Paul (the hill), we found the ruins of St. Paul's Church which was a Catholic Church built in 1521. I'm guessing they didn't have things such as "roofs" back then which was unfortunate for us because it didn't give us much shelter from the piercing rays of the sun.

Zapped of all remaining energy, we asked our tri-shaw driver to drop us off at a local restaurant to try the local delicacy of chicken and rice balls. Don't laugh, *several* people told us that we absolutely could not leave Melaka without trying it. We arrived at the place and there was already a line forming outside. Hey, when people willingly line up to wait for a table at a dive restaurant when there are plenty of immediately available food options within a stone's throw, I want to see what all the fuss is about. I haven't been disappointed yet. As we reached the hostess, I realized that #1 - I didn't really know what this chicken and rice ball thing was, #2 - I didn't know how to ask for it in Malay or Chinese, #3 - there wasn't a menu or even a picture for me to point at in an attempt to order, and #4 - I really had to go to the bathroom. All my fears were allayed when the Chinese hostess took one look at us, assessed correctly that we were Westerners that didn't know what to do, and instructed us that we were going to have 2 orders of chicken and rice balls with a side of vegetables. And indeed we did. The name is a bit misleading as it is really rice balls with chicken on the side, but semantics aside, it was quite good and the standing in line was worth it. Oh, and in case you even had to ask, yes, it was a squat toilet... man am I getting tired of those things.

Sated and happy, we made our way back to the main square to check out Christ Church, an exceptionally bright pink building that is celebrating its 255th anniversary this year and is still being used as a church.

Having seen all the sights, we made our way back to our driver who would take us back to Kuala Lumpur.

However, on the way to the parking lot, we passed by yet another long line of people this time waiting to get ice cream from a vendor with a street cart. We couldn't pass that up, so we stood in line yet again for a delicious afternoon treat. There was only one choice of ice cream, so I elected for 2 scoops and looked at my melting dessert. It was unlike any ice cream I had ever seen with yellow, purple and brown swirls. I tasted it and it was unlike any ice cream I had ever tasted so I summoned up the courage to ask the ice cream vendor what flavor he had given me. He said "Chocolate, corn and yam." Sensing he had missed the foods lesson in his English class, I just said "Oh, it's really good, thanks!" But the more I licked my ice cream, the more I realized he wasn't joking. I knew that if I had asked before I got my ice cream, I probably wouldn't have eaten it, but since I had already tasted it and wasn't gagging, I happily slurped it all up on the ride back to KL. When in Rome, er, Melaka!

The End.

Aha! Just kidding! How could I post about KL and NOT talk about the Petronas Towers! Well, lucky you, I saved the best for last. Back in KL, we got all gussied up for a fancy dinner and drinks at the famous Sky Bar at the top of the Traders Hotel. This is the place to see, be seen and drink in the Petronas Towers in all their lit up glory. Little did we know that you have to have a reservation for one of the lounge areas right next to the windows but we did manage to sneak by and snap a few pictures before calling it a night. The next morning, while Marc was tuning in to some Carolina basketball game (something about a Final Four?), I went back to the Petronas Towers where I stood in line for an hour to get passes to take a tour of the skybridge. The tickets themselves are free, hence the line, but you have to get there early or you risk not getting a ticket. I knew this so at the ungodly hour of 7:30am (on a Sunday while on vacation mind you!), I trudged back to the towers to sleep-stand in line. Luckily, I got the tickets and went back to the hotel to have breakfast and pick up my groom.

I was still sleeping when we left the hotel and I realized I left the tickets in the luggage we had left at the front desk after checking out. So, our poor taxi driver took us back to the hotel and for the third time that day, went back to the Petronas Towers. The tour was really interesting. We learned all about the history of the building and they even showed us a 3D movie about Petronas Gas. I swear that movie had subliminal messages in it because now whenever I hear about oil prices going up, I feel happy! Nonetheless, we looked pretty suave in our aviator 3D glasses.

So now comes the part that will bore everyone except my civil engineer father. Feel free to just look at the pretty pictures, I don't mind. The skybridge is the platform that connects the 2 towers and it actually serves as the buildings' emergency evacuation route. Should one tower catch fire, the people inside it can use the skybridge to get to the other tower and exit safely. I have no idea what happens if both towers are in jeopardy. It is not, as they suggest in Entrapment, the headquarters of the World Bank, nor did we see any duels on the skybridge while we were there. We did learn that the bridge sways up to a foot in either direction and is not actually affixed to either tower. It is held up by huge diagonal "legs" and swivels on huge sockets (like your shoulder ball and socket joint) because a static bridge would not be able to withstand high wind speeds. I didn't feel it swaying but that's what they say.

The Skybridge is located on the 41st and 42nd floors (yes, it is 2 levels) of the 88 floor towers. The Towers are tied for the third tallest building in the world after the Sears Tower and Taipei 101, although not for long as the new Shanghai tower, some building in Dubai and the new monstrosity they are building in Kowloon will all be taller when completed.

For those of you that want to know more, DAD, you can read more about it here or just go visit, after all, it's free and there is even a mall on the ground level for Mom!