Waterfalls and Crocodiles

Despite my tender ankle, Hannah and I decided to go on a hike to a waterfall. If my injury wasn't enough to turn us back perhaps something more dangerous would. I don't know, maybe something like five guys in Army uniforms carrying M-16 machine guns at the start of the waterfall hike.

Yeah, when Hannah and I arrived at the park and started to hike these five or so guys with freshly polished guns crossed our path. Normally this might be a reason not to go hiking in unfamiliar woods but these guys seemed really friendly as they smiled and waved at us. A smile can really be disarming (although in this case I wish I had the arms).

So, Hannah and I ventured into the jungle. For the record, the voice in my head had spoke out earlier when I told Hannah we wouldn't go on another hike to the highest point on the mountain unless we had a guide. This hike we were told was easy enough to do on our own.

The hike was quite pretty with two different waterfalls and a well marked trail. When we got to the top of the mountain we discovered a sleeping hiker in a hammock and a great view of the island.

As we rested, I asked Hannah what animals were in the jungle. She opened up her Lonely Planet Island edition (thanks for the book, Steve!) and began to read. I forget all of the animals she said except one -- WILD CROCODILES.

Frankly, this scared the crap out of me. I can't remember if I blogged about it earlier this year or not (I'll search in a minute) but I have had FOUR dreams of a crocodile eating either a friend or a family member of mine so far this year (I usually have this dream after eating salty hot pots).
Each time the dream is about me and X (one time even my sister) walking through the woods when a croc jumps out and devours X. I try to fight off the croc in my dreams but soon am chased by it through the woods. When Hannah told me that there were crocodiles in the jungle I had a slight moment of panic. A minute later this appeared from under a rock:

It's hard to tell from this picture but that lizard is at least two feet long. It was a big boy. This lizard didn't scare me so much but it made me start to think, "What if some bigger reptiles are near." Hannah and I soaked in the view for another minute and took off...

Being A Good Big Brother

(PICTURE: this picture was taken at around 7PM on the beach. That's the beach restaurant. To get to this restaurant/our bungalow you need to traverse down a hill which is a heck of a lot darker...)

My ace travel adviser Adam Cooper told me that I had to go to the Ko Phanang night market to sample the "greatest chicken on a stick anywhere in the world."

After watching a beautiful sunset one night, Hannah and I drove to the night market. Unfortunately the chicken stand Adam recommended was out of out of chicken. All they had left were two pork sticks. I tried them and they were delicious. The sauce was really sweet and only peaked my interest on how the chicken would taste. The next night Hannah and I went back again an hour earlier...but the chicken was already sold out. All they had left this time were the chicken innards. I tried them...and they weren't so good.

But that isn't the point of this blog entry. The point is about me trying to be a good big brother. After the night market, Hannah and I rode carefully back to our bungalow. It was dark out but we managed to make it home without a problem...well, almost home. The only problem with the Ocean View Bungalows is that there is no driveway. At night I had to leave my bike parked on the street. From the street down to our bungalow is a treacherous step path with NO LIGHTS. Hannah and I didn't know there were no lights and thus didn't have a flashlight with us (Hannah was given a travel light as a present by a friend and I had my cell phone which handily has a flashlight built into it).

Those that know Hannah know that she's a klutz. A big klutz. She's had many falls in her time including one back in college that had left her with a recently discovered broken bone in her foot (this was discovered AFTER she ran the D.C. marathon). Well, I didn't want any sprains/broken bones on my watch so I told Hannah to wait by the bike (again making her wait alone on the street) so I could go fetch some light. I should tell you now that if you ask my Dad, there are two klutz's in our family. Hannah is one and I'm the other. I made it about four steps down the pitch black path before I twisted my ankle and fell. Whoops. The ankle is broken but it is still sore...a week later.

The Voice In My Head

(PICTURE: Hannah and I were one of only four people I saw who wore helmets.)

When I was a little kid I used to play on a boulder in our neighbor's backyard. That "boulder" I'm sure is no bigger than a Mini Cooper but as a kid it felt huge. Well, my father used to tell me not to play on the rock because I might get hurt. Being the young adventure seeker I was, I didn't listen to him and sure enough eventually fell of and had to get stitches above my left eye.

Probably since that day I've had a voice in my head -- my parents' voice. And well, I always hear the voice ("Be careful", "You can get hurt", "Is that safe", etc. etc.) I don't always listen to it. Traveling with my sister these last couple weeks I've been hearing that voice louder and clearer than ever...and reading it in email form: "Take care of your sister."

Well, the first time I chose to ignore the voice on this trip was when Hannah and I arrived on Ko Phanang. Being an experienced motorbike driver I decided Hannah and I should get a bike to explore the island. I made a compromise with the voice which was yelling at me, "DON'T DO IT!" The compromise was this: I'd get the bike but wouldn't allow Hannah to drive it. Hannah told me she wanted to try when we first got the bike but I said I wouldn't allow her. This is a girl who rented a bike when she lived in Belgium and only rode it one time because, "I can't ride on cobblestone."

Well, Hannah and I got a 125cc Honda Dream and took off for our bungalow. As we pulled out of the bike rental shop I immediately heard a strange noise coming from the motor. I decided to ignore it. A few seconds later I heard another noise -- a screetching from the brakes. I also ignored this too. What I couldn't ignore though were the GIGANTIC hills that we had to climb to get to our side of the moutain. Between Hannah, myself and our two backpacks, our bike had no chance of making it. Within the first ten minutes, Hannah had to get off the bike three times and walk up steep hills. Oh yeah, there was one other thing I couldn't avoid -- Hannah's bear hugs around my stomach. Hannah had never ridden a bike before and was pretty scared. I could tell exactly how scared by how hard she squeezed me...and man, she was squeezing pretty hard. After just a few minutes of fear she told me she didn't want to try and drive the bike anymore.

The problem with going up big hills is that you also have to go down big hills. After starting to go down a huge hill I realized that our brakes were really crappy. I heard that voice in my head and decided to pull over. I dropped Hannah off and rode alone back to the the bike shop we had gotten the Honda at. I complained to the owner and then went with him to the repair shop where two mechanics quickly did a maintenance check on the motorbike. After oiling the gears, tightening the brakes, putting more air in the tires and who knows what else, I took off again and picked Hannah up. I'd liked to say that the bike was good as new, but it really was still kind of crappy.

That said, Hannah LOVED the motorbike. Without the bike we would have been marooned on our isolated beach. With the bike we were able to expolore nearly the whole island (although had to quit a few explorations for lack of decent roads).

Two small funny anecdotes about the bike. In my 7 months of riding a bike in Vietnam I have run out of gas exactly ZERO times. In my three days of riding a bike in Thailand I ran out of gas TWO times...both while going up steep hills. Twice I had to leave Hannah on the side of the rode(by that point I had left her on the side of the road about six times) as I coasted back down to the bottom to get more gasoline.

The other funny story is this: When I first brought back the bike to the owner he told me it was my fault and I didn't know how to ride a motorbike. Well, when I brought the bike back on our last night I paid the owner's assistant money to drive me back to the other side of the island (again having left Hannah so she didn't have to ride the bike with me in the dark). After about two minutes the owner's assistant turned to me and said, "Bike is very bad." Two minutes later he dropped me off on the side of the road because the bike wasn't strong enough to get him and I up the hill.

Ko Samui to Ko Phanang

It turns out that the bathroom at the Ko Samui airport was our favorite part of the island. The rest of the island, although beautiful, felt like a spring break spot. After checking into our hotel Hannah and I went for a walk around the town. The main strip of the town was filled with fast food joints (there were two Burger Kings and two McD's in four blocks), loud bars, and even louder bar girls/hookers/tranies trying to get our attention. This wasn't the island paradise Hannah and I were looking for and quickly decided to head to Ko Phanang the next morning.

We made the most of the night though and ate our first pad thai (one of now dozens), shared our first mango shake (first of dozens) and ate a thai street pancake for dessert (also first of dozens). We ended the night by dipping our feet in the ocean.

The next morning we went to Ko Phanang, an island highly recommended to me by a few people. One of the people who told me about the island is a guy named Adam Cooper who I met in Cambodia back in March. Adam, a California Jew, was traveling with his sister...who also happened to be named Hannah. The Cooper siblings are definitely in the upper echilon of cool people I've met this year and thus I took Adam's words of advice as solid gold. Adam told me to go to Ko Phananag and stay at Ocean View Bungalows on the north side of the island. Hannah, my Hannah, and I rented a motorbike (this will be tomorrow's blog) and drove to the bungalows. Adam Cooper was right -- the place was paradise. The bungalows were on a secluded beach with amazing views and barely a soul in sight. Hannah and I stayed in a bungalow about forty feet from the breaking waves and loved every minute of it. Here's us on a rope swing by our bungalow:

The other reason Cooper told me to stay at the Ocean View Bungalows was because the food at the restaurant was "killer." Well, again he was right. Hannah and I ate nearly all of our meals at the beachside, open air restaurant. The food was simply amazing and still the best food we've eaten on this trip. Equally amazing were the looks we got from the waiters when we ordered enough food for four people.

My Travels With Hannah...

Yes, it is the moment many of you have been impatiently waiting for -- My first blog about Hannah.

On December 6th, Hannah and I met up at Bangkok Airport. This was roughly 48 hours after international flights started to fly back to Thailand after the government protesters took over the airport. However, luck wasn't totally on our side. Right around the time Hannah was leaving our family's house in New Jersey I got this email from Bangkok Air:

Dear MR Benjamin August ,
We would like to apologize for your inconvenience.Please be informed that your flight schedule has been changed for : Your updated itinerary are as below details :Booking Code :PPCXJJ Itinerary PG191 Class : B depart Bangkok (Suvarnabhumi Airport) on 06 Dec 2008 at 20:05 arrive Samui on 06 Dec 2008 at 21:10
(All time are local Thailand/Loas/Cambodia/Vietname= GMT+7,Singapore/China(Xishuangbanna,Xian)=GMT+8) Passenger Adult MR Benjamin AugustAdult MS Hannah August
Total Price :THB 6,140.00 According to the change, please kindly check your connecting time and do nothesitate to contact us if you have short connection. Minimum Connecting Time at Bangkok Airport : International to Domestic 2 hoursDomestic to International 2 hoursInternational to International 1.30 hoursDomestic to Domestic 1.30 hours If you have any query, please do not hesitate to contact us at webhelpdesk@bangkokair.com hopefully to serve you soon.

This was a problem. My flight from HCMC to Bangkok was arriving at 7:15 so I had purposely booked Hannah and I for the 9PM flight. By moving our flight up an hour that would mean I had roughly 45 minutes to connect from the international terminal to the domestic terminal. If you read the bottom of the email the airline suggests two hours to make this connection. Worried that Hannah and I would miss our flight to the island I didn't hesitate to email the helpdesk. They didn't hesitate either in ignoring my email. I sent another email to another person I found on the internet and that person also avoided me. I called the Bangkok costumer help line and they too avoided me. I called the HCMC representitive office and they also ignored my call.

I tried to get in touch with Hannah but she had already left for the airport. I cc'd my mom on the email which was probably a bad idea. This put both my mother and father in a state of panic. I can only assume they thought Hannah would board our flight without me, go to Ko Samui alone and get kidnapped by a rogue Thai group. I believe my mother even tried to have my sister paged at the Newark Airport to tell her about our flight problem (Mom, is that right?).

Anyway, after failing to get in touch with anyone who works for Bangkok Air I made a few decisions:

1. I would arrive at the HCMC airport three hours early and talk to an airline rep there. Having done my homework, I saw that Bangkok Air had a flight going to Bangkok about the same time as my Air Asia flight.

2. I put on running shoes thinking I could sprint at the airport in Bangkok to somehow make my flight.

3. I gave myself confidence by thinking and saying to Hien in HCMC: "I'm not too worried. My sister arrives in Bangkok a few hours before me and I'm sure she'll see the flight has changed and try to get us back on the later flight. She's a really smart girl and will take care of it."

Well, here's how it played out:

I went to the HCMC airport and the Bangkok Airlines rep told me he can only deal with HCMC flights and I would have to fix my problem myself in Bangkok. Yeah, great customer service.

I then got to my boarding gate early for my Air Asia flight so I could get one of the closest seats to the door. Air Asia has open seating (like Southwest Airlines) so I figured I could get off first and run towards customs. I ended up getting the aisle seat on the fifth row. Not bad. When we landed and the doors opened I rushed off the plane while apologizing to other passengers that I had another flight to catch. My quick sprint suddenly stopped when I realized there was a transport vehicle waiting outside to take us from the tarmac to the customs area. I now had to wait for all the other passengers to board the vehicle. While everyone else boarded the vehicle I strategically placed myself by the doors so I could make another quick exit. When the vehicle eventually dropped us off I jumped out and sprinted towards the customs signs. My LHS track skills were evident as I arrived at least 200 yards/1 minute before anyone else.

I was sweating and out of breath as I handed the customs officer my passport -- probably not the first impression you want to make on them. The officer looked me over and after a long, deliberate flip through my passport he gave me a stamp and told me to proceed. I thanked him and took off. I ran past the baggage claim, past the "nothing to declare" signs and into the main part of the Bangkok airport.

Knowing I had a short time to make my flight, earlier in the day I looked at the airport map on the internet and knew exactly where I was going. I ran towards the domestic terminals, past a dozen machine gun carrying army guys who all gave me looks, up two escalators and into the domestic terminal. I immediately ran up to the tv screens with flight information and looked up my flight....which had been CANCELED!!!! Yes, canceled. They canceled my new flight they had just emailed me 24 hours earlier that I was being put on. What the f!!!

I quickly caught my breath and went looking for Hannah. I found her sitting on a chair, calm as could be and hit her on the head with my printed out itinerary and yelled: "Our flight is canceled!" Hannah looked at me and said, "Really? It said our flight was on time." I said, "Did you happen to check your email or look at the flight information?" "No." "Our flight was changed." "Really?" Yeah, so much for my "smart sister" taking care of it!

So Hannah and I went up to the Bangkok Airlines check in and was told by the woman that our flight had been cancelled....but that she'd put us on the 9PM flight. Yeah, the same flight I had booked us for! All that stress for nothing!!!!

Hannah and I checked in, gave each other hugs and eventually got on our plane. The flight was only an hour to the islands and was pretty uneventful...except for that small part when we were coming in for a landing, pretty low to the ground and close to the runway and all of a sudden our plane quickly pulled up back into the sky. Hannah and I looked at each other and started to laugh -- "uh, that isn't normal right?". Everyone on the plane gave each other concerned looks (and looks at us wondering why we were laughing) until the captain got on the PA system and said, "There is an electrical problem at the airport. We will land when it is fixed." Apparently the lights went out on the runway.

A few minutes later we landed and got our first taste of tropical air. We knew we were in for a good trip when we both came back from the airport bathrooms raving about the facilities. The men's bathroom had a fish tank over the urinals. Yeah, can you say paradise!!!

Chi

(PICTURE: Chi not cooperating in posing for a picture.)

When I return to Language Link in January, Chi, one of my favorite people will be gone. Chi, an all around amazing person, left Language Link the same day I did...for another branch of Language Link. We're going to miss you at Cat Linh, Chi!

Zebras

I've been told time and again that Hanoi gets really cold in winter. At first I brushed this off thinking that Vietnamese people were just used to warm weather. However, it has been downright freezing this fall making me think that winter will be ice cold.

I think the main reason that it is so cold is that no buildings have heat. And for that matter, they probably don't have insulation either. So, I came up with a plan -- ADULT ONESIES. Yeah, onesies. I'm talking about an adult version of those adorable little outfits that infants wear. Well, I told the idea to Huyen and she thought it was really funny so we went to a tailor to see if it could be done. I printed up some pictures from online of exactly what I wanted (I'm not reinventing the wheel here since you can actually buy them online). The tailors looked at the pictures and laughed but said it was doable.

The next step was Huyen and I getting fabric. We went to the fabric market and searched high and low until we found the perfect material and pattern. We went with a 75% cotton, 15% wool blend which is both comfortable and warm.

Before I left the onesies weren't finished (they had forgotten to make us our butt-flaps and didn't sew on the shoes) but they let us try them on. Check it out: