问题补充&&
是were 因为three fishes是多人 如果只是a fish 或者 one fish 的话就用was了
热心网友 &11-27 04:21
were fishes
热心网友&11-27 03:44
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We are home!!! The rest of the trip will be posted soon!
Scams Galore....
October 19th-21th, 2008
<img class="right" src="./img/daughter.jpg" alt="The Boos in Udaipur" title="The Boos in Udaipur"
Over our next few days in Udaipur, we get to learn about several of the numerous scams that will repeatedly occur all throughout India.
We get burned on a few, but overall start to learn the ropes of successfully travelling through India.
There is of course the “commission scam” which is the most prevalent in all of India and applies to all shopping and hotels.
Basically, people on the street or taxi drivers will try to talk you into visiting “their shop” or “their brother's hotel” and if you go with them, the price increases by about 30% to cover their commission.
The next scam is that you should never trust the quality of any item.
Cori had a shirt tailored for him and the shop owner swapped out the nicer fabric we had agreed to for a cheaper fabric.
When we confronted him, he of course got really dramatically insulted, preying on our Western tendency to avoid confrontation.
Since the price was pretty low anyway (by US standards), we were about to just give in.
Then we noticed that the sewing job was terrible too and Cori went back and complained again.
We did have a little ammo because the hotel recommended this shop to us and clearly it does a nice business because of the Trip Advisor rating.
We were preparted to threaten to slam them on Trip Advisor for taking part in these lies, but the shop keeper relented and refunded us about 25%.
Oh, I should mention here, that our hotel actually has us followed when we first arrived to see what kinds of things we might be buying so that they could sway us to purchase things from shops they are related to.
They knew already we had an interest in tailored clothing and swore fervently that this store across from the hotel would give us a very fair price and have top quality with the utmost attention to service.
Let me remind you here, we were staying in a pretty nice place, not 5 star nice, but very nice.
We did not at all expect to be so totally swindled and lied to by these people who so emphatically helped us.
The sad thing is this happens again, and again, and again.
The only recommendation you can trust in India are those from foreign tourists.
Throughout this trip, as soon as we start to open up a little bit to trusting someone, we get burned.
It is the most challenging thing about travel in this country.
On to something positive!.....
<img class="left" src="./img/chai.jpg" alt="The Boos in Udaipur" title="The Boos in Udaipur"
Today we decided to take a cooking lesson.
We found a spice shop offering Indian cooking lessons and decided to give it a try because we both love Indian food.
We also heard from some tourists (see above on referrals) that it was a good experience.
It turned out to be one of the best cultural experiences we had in India.
We spent 4 hours at this guy's home, meeting his wife, daughter, sister and mother (the whole family lives together) and learning how to cook delicious Indian foods.
Even better than the food, it was educational to see how someone in the Indian middle class lives, to see their home, to see their wedding album, and to observe how their family interacts.
We clearly understood how much family is at the center of life for an Indian.
There were only four of us in the class, us plus a New Zealand couple, so it was a lovely intimate experience.
Also, I look forward to practicing making some Gulab Jaman when I return!
It is sweet dehydrated milk (like cheese but not cultured) and a small amount of flour fried in clarified butter and soaked in rosewater syrup....like the best donut you ever had.
Ummmm, donuts.
Sensory overload, we need a break.....
<img class="right" src="./img/rebpalace.jpg" alt="The Boos in Udaipur" title="The Boos in Udaipur"
On to our single largest splurge of this entire trip:
a night at the Lake Palace Hotel plus spa treatments.
As I mentioned, Udaipur is situated around a lake.
In the middle of the lake is a marble palace built hundreds of years ago by a maharaja.
This palace has been converted into a luxury hotel that is consistently ranked as one of the top hotels in the world.
You must be a guest of the hotel to even visit the palace!
After a few days trying to avoid stepping in cow and elephant poop, swatting at flies, and seeing dying and infected dogs, cows, goats and chickens everywhere, this is a welcome escape from the real world.
By the way, the aforementioned livestock that you regularly see eating trash makes it REALLY easy to eat vegetarian in India.
In fact, I'm not sure I'll ever eat pork again, but that is a story for later.
Back to our Palace.....We are instantly giddy when the rickshaw drops us at the boat site and we are handed cool scented towels and fresh water by a man dressed in traditional Rajasthani uniform with a giant handlebar mustache.
The next 24 hours is a whirl of eating, drinking, lounging by the pool, using the gym, reading glamor magazines, getting massages and scrubs, and soaking up the highly air conditioned and jasmine scented Palace.
Easing our way into the insanity.....
October 18th, 2008
We arrive in Udaipur around 7am.
Stepping off the train we find no pre-paid taxi stand in sight, thus having to resort to the other form of taxi service....essentially, it is hitch hicking of sorts.
Regular Indians
wait at train stations and offer to drive tourists around in their own private cars or cycle rickshaws.
luck of the draw and youfeel at times like you're playing Russian Roulette.
You must follow your instincts about getting into the car because at best, the driver will try to sell you on a hotel where you will get charged a (hidden) 30% commission and might refuse to take you where you want to go.
At worst, you could be robbed....or as an unfortunate Saudi business man at Delhi International Airport found out last week, you could also be killed.
We found a good driver.
After a sales pitch to hire him as our driver for several days, we did get dropped off at the correct hotel.
<img class="right" src="./img/bunele.jpg" alt="The Boos in Udaipur" title="The Boos in Udaipur"
Udaipur is going to be a pretty gentle break-in for our time in India.
The town is romantically curled around Lake Pichola.
In the middle of this lake is a breathtaking white marble palace that has been converted into one of the world's most luxurious hotels.
In fact, three of the hotels in the Udaipur area are ranked in the top 10 hotels in the world.
Our hotel, The Tiger, has a rooftop restaurant and lounge with outstanding views of the lake and the palace.
It smells like urine (we think its the incense actually) when you walk in the lobby, but for India standards it is really nice...top rated on Trip Advisor even.
Also, we are lucky and the lake has water today.
heard that global warming has been particularly harsh for Rajasthan.
The previous three years, the lake has been dry and the Palace sits in a bed of sludge and flies.
However this year the monsoons produced enough rain and the view is spectacular.
We start a nightly ritual of having a chai at our rooftop restaurant and watching the blazing sun descend over the hills of Rajasthan.
This is going to be one long month.....
October 17th, 2008
<img class="left" src="./img/boosinud.jpg" alt="The Boos in Udaipur" title="The Boos in Udaipur"
<img class="right" src="./img/bunnytrainsleep.jpg" alt="AC2 Indian Train Berth Rebecca" title="AC2 Indian Train Berth Rebecca"
<img class="right" src="./img/traintoilet.jpg" alt="Indian Train Toilet" title="AC2 Indian Train Toilet"
<img class="left" src="./img/cowbridge.jpg" alt="Cow and color on bridge" title="Cow and color on bridge"
We're up at 6:30 for a flight out of Hong Kong to India.
I (Cori) go hardcore and manage to smuggle a 5 oz bottle of facial soap on in my carry- one small bottle of soap, one huge step for mankind!
Stepping on the plane you know at once where you are headed....the spicy BO of 100 Indian business men hits your nostrils and almost at once you feel transported to a new place.
After 5 hours in the air we lose a couple of time zones and land in New Delhi at 12:30.
Just the beginnings of the craziness of India, before the plane lands, the flight attendants walk the aisles and spray (more like douse) all the passengers down with disinfectant.
This is particularly amusing in retrospect because 99% of the Indians we met in India had zero concept of basic sanitation.
Immigration and customs are a breeze and we walk out into the arrivals lounge that smells like a septic tank and a dirty catbox- literally! We hit the ATM for some cash, swap our flip-flops for close-toed shoes and head outside to book a pre-paid taxi.
Outside is where you step
into a different world.
The pre-paid cab takes the financial and most of the physical risk out of the equation but its still a wild experience.
Instead of selling you on their cab, the hundreds of cabbies are now trying to sell the booker on their cab and they swarm around me as I pay.
One just has to go with flow as this is the first tiny baby step into the different that is India.
I'm given the number of a cab and a police officer shows us to an ancient Ambassador with a trunk held shut with some electric wire.
The traffic is as organic in it's flow as Vietnam albeit with a slightly crazier feel but we're still nonplussed.
Stopping at a traffic light with the windows down we're accosted by two ragmuffins who start throwing roses and newspapers on our laps through the open windows so that we give them money.
We throw everything back out as quickly as possible but in it comes again, and again. Despite the tragedy of the situation its impossible to not start laughing and this is what everyone does including the cabbie and an adult beggar standing behind them selling books.
India is one of the many lands that forces you to confront the vast inequity of life.
Its impossible to give to every beggar, many who are horribly crippled, money or even notice.
The huge disparity between the many/most Indians and Westerners is so great that it affects everything and its daunting and difficult to deal with.
The taxi takes us to one of the many train stations in Delhi where we plan to catch our overnight 12 hour train to Udaipur in Rajasthan.
We arrive at the train station 4 hours early.
It's not the best place you want to kill time....very dirty, very noisy, crowded, and with everyone literally speechlessly staring at the two tall white tourists.
But many Indians don't seem to mind the wait as many of them go right ahead and lie down on the filthy floors to take naps, nurse babies, talk with family, cook up a snack.
There are some pretty shabby metal detectors you have to go through both at the train station and at the air conditioned Indian fast food place next door which is where we decide to whittle the hours away.
We buy some bananas and board the train in our AC2 car (2 tier AC class.)
Sharing our berth (six convertible beds, two on one side of the aisle running parallel with the car, and 4 perpendicular to the train as you would expect them) are a dentist and his wife from Bengal and a college student studying hotel management from Delhi.
It is just about the best possible train mates for our first night in India.
The train itself is pretty run down and we are soon greeted by what we now know is the ubiquitious cockroach.
No train ride in India is complete without seeing at least one of these roaches in your car.
To stay calm, I think of our little roach as the cockroach in the Pixar movie, WALL-E, and try to gently swat it away from my lap as the Indian passageners all openly stare at me.
Cori steps off the train for a moment and I nearly scream as a filthy black scrawny animal squirms between my legs and under the seat in front of me....I realize with some horror a moment later that it is a child... one of the homeless kids who lives in the station and sneaks on the train between stops to clean off the garbage for tips.
Cori has all the money so I feel like a failure as this kid has just picked up the garbage left under my seat, probably has never really bathed in his approximately 7 years of life, and I have nothing useful to give.
After we pull away from the station, our bunk mates help us negotiate the purchase of some chai, tomato soup and later on a hot meal from the many “wallahs” who sell snacks.
We are concerned about getting sick, but we are here for a month....at some point you have to just dive in and hope for the best because we are not going to eat Oreos all month.
After dinner, we make up our beds, take sleeping pills (the ride is REALLY bumpy), brave the foul and rancid train toilets (by the end of the trip, we can both hold our breath for a really long time), and have our first night of sleep after a very eventful yet ordinary day.
October 11th-16th, 2008
<img class="right" src="./img/geese.jpg" alt="Vietnam River Boat Eyes" title="Heavy rain in Vietnam"
The primary reason we came to North Vietnam was to visit Ha Long Bay.
The name means “dragon descending” as the bay looks similar to an enormous dragon tail swirling around the bay (or something like that.)
There are hundreds upon hundreds of limestone islands jutting out of the water in the bay with little floating fishing villages (literally on a pile of styrofoam) dotted throughout.
We took an overnight boat trip around the islands, stopping to visit some caves, go kayaking, and visit some beaches and larger islands for hiking.
The second and third nights we stayed on the largest island, Cat Ba, to relax.
Our beach front room was only $10 per night and came with a fantastic view of Cat Ba Bay.
We rented motorbikes again and spent a day just driving around the island.
The scenery is lovely....remote villages where school children yell “hello!” as you ride by, ducks and wild goats hanginng out by the roads, lush green farm land, etc.
After a few days of just hanging out, our relaxation and mellow moods end on our bus return as we discover ourselves on the bus of insanity...our driver swerves around traffic honking and nearly hitting everything in site, he also almost left Cori in the bathroom at a stop and I had to stand in the door of the bus yelling “stop! Stop! Stop!”.
As we pull up to our final stop in Hanoi, he doesn't even stop the bus to let you off, he just slows down and you have to jump off into the street...seriously!
But, we get over our shaken nerves with some more 18 cent beers and excellent cheap food for our last nights in Hanoi.
Back to Saigon for our departing flight to Hong Kong then on to Delhi, I'm again reflecting on my favorite aspects of our time in Vietnam:
the coffee!...I think we drank about 4-5 Vietnamese coffees a day, the friendly and smiling Vietnamese people, sailing around the mysterious and beautiful Ha Long Bay, and driving/riding on motorbikes and becoming part of the organic mass of bikes that swarm around obstacles like schools of fish, speaking of fish...my favorite meal:
fish with tamirand sauce (yum!). Not everything was perfect though as we did get ripped off by a cab with a modified odometer and corruption is very rife in Vietnam.
Onto Hanoi
October 08th-10th, 2008
<img class="right" src="./img/corimarket.jpg" alt="Vietnam River Boat Eyes" title="Heavy rain in Vietnam"
<img class="left" src="./img/motogas.jpg" alt="fueling motorbike hanoi" title="fueling motorbike Hanoi"
Today we flew north to Hanoi, capitol of Vietnam.
We quickly find that we adore this city.
It doesn't have the same bustling street vibe that Saigon has, but it feels more authenticly Vietnamese and French colonial.
The architecture is an interesting blend of French and Asian styles and very colorful and numerous lakes are scattered around the city.
We stay in the Old Quarter for 3 nights, right in the town center.
The streets make up the old market area of the city and are named after what is traditionally sold there (shoes, glassses, ceramics, silk, etc.) and you still see entire block with nothing but tombstone engravers or shoes.
It's a very lively area with plenty of Bia Hoi joints.
Bia Hoi are local brew bars that are set up in the middle of the streets.
Tiny plastic chairs are set down for you as you arrive and as the night wears on, the people begin to mingle and overflow into the roads and intersections.
Best of all, the beer is home brewed, darn good (a light lager with more flavor then the still dirt cheap botttled beer,) and costs 3000 dong (at 16600 dong to the dollar about 18 cents) a glass.
People intermingle with each other and you can meet
travelers from all over the world as well as locals.
We are lucky enough to sit next to
a brother and sister and discussed business, corruption, and politics.
Another big activity on our to-do list is get some silk tailoring done.
Express silk tailoring is a big business in Hanoi and we indulge.
There are hundreds of shops and it is challenging to choose one but obviously good English, apparent tailoring skills, and the quality and choice of fabrics are important.
We end up having wo one was the choice of Hillary Clinton and the shop is filled with
pictures of her posing in her new clothes with the staff.
I get 2 dresses and 2 skirts made and Cori got a linen shirt made (shortly to be seen in every picture
henceforth!)
The other big event for us while in Hanoi was renting a motorbike.
For $4 a day, we braved the insanity of the Vietnamese streets, doubling up on a tiny motorbike.
It was pretty amusing and extremely scary at times but we had a great time driving around the various lakes in Hanoi, driving past the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, and around the French Quarter.
This is like the funnest, scariest (and most dangerous) amusement park ride.
Cu Chi Tunnels
October 07th, 2008
<img class="left" src="./img/rivereyes.jpg" alt="Vietnam River Boat Eyes" title="Heavy rain in Vietnam"
<img class="right" src="./img/rebak47.jpg" alt="Rebecca AK47" title="Reb AK47"
On our last full day in Saigon, we take a guided trip to the Cu Chi Tunnels north of the city.
We generally hate guided tours, but we have probably the most qualified tour guide possible for this day trip.
The Cu Chi Tunnels are an underground city of sorts built by the Viet Ming resistance during the Vietnam War (logically known as the American War here).
They successfully managed to hold back continuous American military attempts to capture this area of Vietnam, even (allegedly) tunneling under the nearby American base to steal food and weapons.
Our guide is Vietnamese and he moved to the US as a teenager to be with his father who was an ambassador in New York.
He ended up becoming a US citizen and joining the military, eventually he was deployed to Vietnam and was stationed near the Cu Chi Tunnels.
Long story short, as the American presence ended he chose (he claims) to not leave Vietnam and after the war he was arrested and spent 4.5 years in re-education prison in Vietnam and removing land mines, eventually becoming a Vietnamese citizen again.
After his release, labeled as a war criminal, he couldn't find work and nearly starved to death.
He worked as a rickshaw puller and a blackmarketer
before doing more hard time.
As the country reformed and began to allow tourism he became a tour guide, a job he's been doing now for 20 years.
That is the short version.
Apparenttly his life story is documented in several books around the world.
I think this tour is a bit of a cathartic healing for him and he was the most passionate tour guide I've ever seen.
He even started to cry as he told us about what happened to his family after the war.
Pretty sobering stuff.
Anyway, the tunnels are very impressive but there is a strong anti-American bent to the presentation.
The opening propaganda video at the start of the tour describes “American soldiers coming up from the depths of hell to rain death and destruction over the simple and peaceful Vietnamese farmers and their wives and children” and villagers are awarded “American Killer Hero” badges.
There is also a grisly display of numerous torture traps the Vietnamese built to capture American soldiers.
But I can't say we are
offended by these displays because we'd feel the same way if the tables had been turned and we had had to deal with Napalm and Agent Orange on a daily basis.
The people are clearly very proud that they were able to build these tunnels and defeat the American military.
Rounding out the experience on a less philosphical note, I crawled through the tunnels (something Rebecca did on her first trip here) and managed to make it through only because of the widenin in fact the tunnels were designed to start big and get small in places to trap American soldiers.
And on a truly un-PC note, we fired a fully automatic AK-47 at a firing range.
Yeehah, take the experiences where you find them!
Dalak, the new Napa Valley!
October 06th, 2008
We spend much of the second day running errands like finding a pharmacy and booking our airline tickets to Hanoi from Saigon (its possible to book Vietnam Airline tickets outside the country bu $465 per person instead of $200 roundtrip.) For we jump on the back of two scooter taxis (basically regular citizens who will drive you anywhere on the back of their personal scooter for a small price [as in $1 US] you negotiate in advance).
We are headed to a popular mostly locals restaurant and I can't stop laughing as my driver expertly weaves us through hordes of totally insane traffic and even passes Cori's driver.
Cori's driver, seemingly finding this as a threat to his ego, decides on a shortcut of going the wrong way down a packed one-way street, with liberal use of the sidewalk (if you don't like my driving stay off the sidewalk) of course, and beats me there.
The meal i cheap and tasty but not as filling as we'd like.
We do however get a good (relative term) bottle of Vietnamese red wine ($4US) from the Dalak region. They serve it very very cold and even bring out an ice bucket which I waves off.
The wine itself is light with moderate acidity and mellow tannins but not much fruit.
It would make a great house red for some Italian restaurant in the states and we manage to put the whole bottle away, a feat that Rebecca and I rarely pull off on our own (though when eating out with friends we manage to always hold our own very well!)
Vietnam Rocks!
October 05th, 2008
<img class="left" src="./img/rain1.jpg" alt="Vietnam Rain" title="Heavy rain in Vietnam"
<img class="right" src="./img/saigonscooters.jpg" alt="Scooters in Saigon" title="scooters in Saigon"
Leaving Hong Kong, we head to the airport early via the aiport train.
We're able to check our liquids luggage at the train station and secure exit row seats before even boarding the plane.
Empty remote
check-in might be a horrible waste of money for Hong Kong, but it is nice to hand off your luggage before you get to the airport.
Our flight is uneventful and we arrive in Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City to warm sticky weather and our d it takes all the fun out of it when the cab drops you off in front of your hotel!
Our reserved room is occupied so we're put in a cheaper one ($22) that is noisy and becomes stinky at night from the shower drain- I don't know why developing countries never have drain traps but it would certainly make for a nicer experience.
We leave our stuff (except our valuables including my subnotebook laptop) and take bicycle rickshaws towards the center of town for lunch, where the nicer hotels, restaurants, and bars are.
We're staying in the backpackers quarter and motobike taxis (you ride on the back of their scooter) and rickshaws abound in this area so finding two drivers is easy but bargaining is critical and we haggle for a minute before paying US 1 d a great value but more than necessary if you do this for sport!
Saigon is however trying to “modernize” and is making life more difficult for rickshaw drivers by banning them from the very center of town.
It is a shame because it is a delightful way to travel around the tightly packed central area of the city.
We enjoy lunch at Lemongrass, a famous restaurant that Rebecca visited 12 years ago on her first trip to Saigon (with Semester at Sea) and Rebecca's dad Ed (on a different trip) got locked in a malfunctioning bathroom stall and had to climb out of it!
Food in Vietnam is good and cheap (the exact opposite of Hong Kong) and we are loving it!
Vietnam has a huge cafe scene where you can order a Vietnamese coffee for less than $1 US.
Vietnamese coffee is a thick drip coffee sweetened with condensed milk.
It's brilliant -cheap and delicious.
We go through two each and while enjoying our second cup it starts to rain.
Scratch that, it starts to pour thick sheets of water and soon the streets are becoming little rivers.
We are in a covered patio and stare as people go buy, still driving their scooters but now with huge rain slickers that cover them and their entire scooter.
Speaking of the scooter, it is by far the most popular means of transport and you will commonly see entire families with 2 parents and 2 kids all crammed on to one tiny scooter together.
Also, to make it even more fun, there are pretty much no enforced traffic laws on scooters (though occasional license checks are done and helmets are required but not ubiquitous.)
Scooters don't obey red lights.
They don't obey one way streets.
They don't even obey the idea of driving only on streets and often you'll see people driving down a crowded sidewalk to avoid the traffic in the street.
We've seen people texting while also holding a child on their laps and with a passenger on the back.
You keep holding your breath, waiting to see an accident, but we didn't see any except a small fender-bender later in Hanoi.
Somehow this organic mess of crazy driving with a thousand scooters crowding through streets works and we don't know how, but it does.
Also, when you want to cross the street, don't expect a cross-walk signal where everyone stops and waits for you....you just step off the sidewalk and walk slowly and steadily across the street.
The scooters part around you in one organic mass and somehow you make it to the other side.
In fact, crossing the street in Saigon without fear and smoothly like a local will make you feel like you mastered a little secret skill.
Dinner is at at the Temple Club, a very nice restaurant on the second floor (first floor to Vietnamese who've kept this mode from the French) of an old colonial building.
The interior is fantastic and the recommended food is even better.
One of my pet peeves is when a server won't proffer an opinion when you're at a loss for what to order, but at the Temple Club they are professional waiters and on their advice Rebecca had the Monkfish in tamarind sauce that is amazing.
This is our absolute favorite dish in Vietnam and incidentally when I googled Temple Club there is the New York Times mentioning that very dish in a review.
Seafood can be of dubious quality in Vietnam but this is one of the places that I felt safe ordering with impunity and at ($5-6) the value is great.
Hong Kong, our favorite place to leave
September 30th - October 04th, 2008
<img class="left" src="./img/hongkong2.jpg" alt="Big Buddha" title="Big Buddha"
<img class="right" src="./img/hongkong3.jpg" alt="Big Buddha" title="Big Buddha"
<img class="left" src="./img/hongkong4.jpg" alt="Big Buddha" title="Big Buddha"
Japan has been wonderful but we're off to Hong Kong bright and early.
The flight is mellow but unfortunately every airport in the world now has the retarded
“no liquids in your carryon luggage” so we continue to check a light duffel bag with just our sh we don't check anything of value because with 20+ flights coming up, the odds of something being at least delayed are high.
We catch the airport express train that takes us
closer to our hotel where we then board an otherwise empty bus (one of 5 routes) that makes a loop of major hotels every 30 minutes.
This is the joy of a communist country where you can have 5 empty buses continually circling but back home RTD is cutting
times for the standing room only Boulder to Denver express route because even a full bus loses money.
Our hotel is the Cityview (renamed this summer from the YMCA) in Kowloon, across the bay from Hong Kong proper.
It's relatively nice, but our favorite aspect is the gym as our only antidote to our continuous eating in Japan has been walking with little aerobic exercise.
Our first impression of Hong Kong/Kowloon is “this place sucks.”
That's also our second and third impression.
We went in with positive attitudes but they were quickly changed by the (in mixes) pretentious, materialistic, over priced (for food,) low-quality, ugly (parts), smelly, crowded and extremely noisy city.
Obviously we're just scratching the surface with our stay, but people don't seem to be very happy and lack the joie de vivre that most populaces possess.
People are nice and generally very helpful but if this area, being in the semi-free Special Administrative Region that encompasses the greater Hong Kong area, is the best that China has to offer, I double my wish that China's semi-post-communist-capitalist-command-economy doesn't take over the world.
We do see a pro-democracy parade (don't try this at home Mainland China Tourist) and we are stopped in the street by a television reporter and cameraman on Hong Kong island asking about international opinion in regard to the tainted milk crisis (after initial hesitation we laid into government, calling for nothing short of regime change!) so basic freedom of expression is allowed but the shots are still called from Beijing.
Speaking of contaminated milk, we did have some bottles of Milk Tea in Japan that were contaminated with melamine but in Hong Kong we bought milk from a Trappist Dairy in Kowloon for our morning coffee- if monks are contaminating their milk then we have bigger problems than kidney stones!
High tea at the Penisula Hotel is considered a must do on most Hong Kong lists, but some misplaced snootiness kept us from enjoying it as Rebecca's shoes (though very nice) were not leather and were therefore considered “beach sandals.”
Poop on them!
Hong Kong is known for its tailors and a million (2 or 3 thousand) Indian touts accost you to have a custom suit made. HK's top-end tailors are among the best in the world but the last few decades has made it harder to find high quality bespoke tailoring bargains.
But they still exist (I hope!) I perused the online style boards and tried to find some highly recommended tailors, eventually settling on Sanjay at Om tailors. Everyone spoke highly of him and with a business name like that I figure he believes in Karma.
If nothing else I like an older Indian guy who starts the day with a chanting CD but listens to gangster rap the rest of the time.
Rebecca and I stopped by his (very) small shop and we discussed cloth and cuts and bargained for awhile. He took the first measurements and I came back the next day for the second fitting.
I'll have the final fitting in November when we pass through Hong Kong again and I'll be sure to provide an update on the final product.
I paid $450 for a bespoke tailored suit with 2 trousers and 2 custom shirts.
Since I'm currently unemployed this ensemble might be getting a bit of use come December, especially with economy in such good shape.
Food was a chore for us in this town. I'm sure the high end has decent faire but the prices are high (compared to Colorado) and the quality was attrocious at low and mid range restaurants, doubly shocking coming from Japan where the quality (if not organic origin) of food is an obsession.
I enjoy cooking with whole poultry at home (occasionaly) so I'm relatively familiar with the parts of a chicken but Chinese chickens don't resemble anything sold at Whole Foods. Ahh, the joys of a sheltered life!
Last Day in Japan!
September 29th, 2008
It's our last day, and I (Rebecca) am feeling a bit under the weather, so we spend much of the day reading and doing email. Because we're wrapping up a leg of our journey I find myself reflecting back on our wonderful 2 weeks.
Overall, some of my favorite things about Japan:
Shinjuku and Shibu areas of Tokyo where teenagers rule with their trendy an the amazing selection and quality of the fo sitting in the hot baths of the ryokan with a view of the valley and river below surrounded by delicate J and the sincerely polite attitude and deep respect for personal space (a necessity because of the rarity of true space) and quiet that the Japanese have.
(Cori here:) Japan is truly a vacation diamond in the rough.
Prices are not that
bad (less than New York,) their attitudes towards foreigners is great (better than New York,) the food
can be uniquely weird but the quality is great (bang for the buck better than New York,) and if you're into style and fashion the Japanese (and specifically the Tokyoites) have gobs of it because they try so hard (hip style yes, cool never.) We'll be back for more fun and learning someday, though I think that Pachinko is like C
if your weren't born with it, comprehension will forever elude you!
September 28th, 2008
<img class="right" src="./img/hiroshima2.jpg" alt="Big Buddha" title="Big Buddha"
We are in the home stretch and made our final transfers to Osaka today where we will spend our last 2 nights in Japan.
After finding our hotel in Osaka (never an easy thing to do when street signs are in Kanji characters) we decide to spend the afternoon on a day trip to Hiroshima.
We have pre-paid unlimited Japan Rail passes, so the only investment is a 2-hour train ride each way.
Central Hiroshima was effectively completely rebuilt after the August 6th, 1945 atomic blast.
Only the shells of a few brick buildings survived, one of these becoming a central component of the Peace Park where there is a museum and several monuments dedicated to victims of the A-bomb.
Most touching was the monument dedicated to a little girl who died of lukemia after the war because she and her mother were stuck in a storm of black rain with no shelter (black rain is nuclear debris that falls back down as rain from the emmnse cloud generated by an atomic bomb).
Once she was diagnosed with leukemia, she thought she might be spared if she could fold 1,000 paper cranes as a legend has it that folding 1,000 paper cranes grants you a wish.
She didn't finish in time, so school children around the country finished the project for her and all the cranes are displayed around a monument built in her honor.
The depravity of every side in warfare is evident including Japan's imperialistic facist bent that led to the war and allowed the racist enslavement of their neighbors [including the 1000+ unnamed koreans killed in the blast] and called for the sacrifice of every Japanese citizen to slow the Allied forces to America's cold and clearly racist analysis of potential bombing sites designed to send a message to the Russians rather than end the war, to the Russians breaking a non-aggression pact with the Japanese only after the bomb was dropped so that they could be “at war” with the Japanese when the war actually ended days later.
As we examined these unfortunate truths, the Hiroshima Toyo Carp professional baseball team was victorious in a game and their chants and ebullient mood could be felt and heard across the street at the
somber museum and memorial.
The trolley car we rode back to the train station was filled with fans in red Carp jerseys and Hiroshima is a now a bustling attractive city with beautiful waterways and a fun (if godawful slow) trolley system.
What else can we eat?
September 27th, 2008
<img class="right" src="./img/buddha2.jpg" alt="Big Buddha" title="Big Buddha"
Today we decided to visit Kinkaku-Ji Temple, otherwise known as The Golden Pavilion.
It's a stunning, actually made of gold temple surrounded by beautiful gardens on the outskirts of Kyoto.
It was insanely crowded (being Saturday morning and all) but we got to see several families all dolled up in their traditional men's and women's kimono. Afterwards, feeling lazy from battling the crowds at the temple we headed back to the hotel for naps...hey, we are on vacation here!
In the afternoon, we mustered the effort to head out for some lunch.
Kyoto, like Tokyo, has many central enormous department stores, always with several floors dedicated to food.
We hit the grab-and-go section for salads, tempura and some treats and then head to the river to sit with the other couples enjoying the sun and eating lunch (ironically many of the Japanese had made a stop at the Golden Arches for some foreign food.)
After lunch we trotted across the river to Gion to visit a shop I had made a mental note of the night before....the cream puff shop!
Serving up cream puffs the size of
our face, we enjoyed stuffing them into ours while the rest of the patrons at the coffee shop watched and bet on horrse races that were on the telly.
The balance of the day was spent poking around in Gion, doing more eating, more drinking, yada, yada.
Can you tell that we LOVE the food in Japan?
Shoguns and Ninjas and Geishas, oh my!
September 26th, 2008
<img class="right" src="./img/nijojo.jpg" alt="Nijo-Jo Castle" title="Nijo-Jo Castle"
<img class="left" src="./img/kamo1.jpg" alt="Image description" title="Image titl"
<img class="right" src="./img/alley.jpg" alt="Image description" title="Image title"
Our hotel in central Kyoto was within easy walking distance from a number of important castles and fortress including the Nijo-Jo Castle, built by the military ruler-ship, the Shogun in 1603. At this time the Emperor was mostly a ceremonial position, similar to today, and the Shoguns actually ran all important aspects of the government. In keeping with that the Shoguns palace was an easily defended and elaborate (from an Eastern perspective) palace while the Emperors Kyoto nearby palace was austere. One of the the coolest things to see were the nightingale floors that were designed to squeak when walked on to prevent stealthy entry a technique useful today in catching teenagers trying to sneak out of the house!
After our our history lesson we found a neighborhood noodle chop for some excellent soba (the big fat kind) noodles. Our afternoon was spent on the Eastern side of the Kamo river in the Gion and shrine area. The temples are really incredible and when we were there very peaceful in sharp contrast to the rest of the city and tourist attractions. We enjoyed the wonderful grounds as it got darker and then walked the ancient narrow streets past classic wooden houses. Little shops fill this area and while touristy, the art and gifts that they sell are very nice and are lest kitschy than whats is available in the rest of the city. Helping create the mood of classic Japan were the glimpses we caught of true life (and some fakes we suspect) geishas on their way to keep appointments. While I too wanted a picture, I felt embarrassed by the throngs of tourists (mostly Japanese) who would crowd around sticking a video camera in the women's face. One geisha we passed gave me a very practiced smile that belays the skill that goes into being a professional flirt.
In typical Cori and Rebecca fashion, we did multi mile loops looking for the right restaurant that would satisfy our budget, tastes and still provide some unique experience. Our choice was a smoky yakitori joint that provided grilled meat on a stick that went down great with beer (Cori) and Ume(Apricot liqueur) and soda (Rebecca.) Even at two to three dollars a skewer, when you have a handle of skewe our budget for the night was shot but the food was delicious.
After dinner we headed to a Pachinko parlor. Each parlor is like a room of slot machines on steroids and the cacophony is truly insane. You buy buckets of little ball bearings that are fed into the machine that resembles a pinball machine but without the skill. The background video of the one we played had scantily clad mermaids and plenty of noise and ate our bucket of balls like nobody's business. My understanding of how you win is that you get an attendant to tell you what machines to play because the odds are tweakable. The only appeal for us was in experiencing something that is so clearly meant for a different culture, but then again the appeal of slots back home in the states is also hard to fathom but I guess there's a pretty big cultural gap there too.
Speaking of cultural differences, the Japanese density and willingness to spend on simple recreation has created and supported so many great things for Japanese children and teenagers. One of these being whole parlors filled with uber-photo machines where you can take photos in a booth, and then manipulate them with all kinds of digital tools before printing them on stickers, and all for 2-4 dollars. It would be nice to see U.S. store front businesses embracing teens with entertainment options that don't include shopping, but maybe the sprawl and lack of urban density keeps these from being economically viable. Short story long, we made stickers and it was fun!
On to Kyoto...
September 25th, 2008
Cori he I'm the one who can't speak any Japanese but I too am pretty good at hitting my head. We left the ryokan and headed out of the mountains and back to the city, this time Kyoto. Buses, two trains, and two subway lines gets us within a 5 block area of our hotel. This is always the hardest part, finding the hotel, especially with our full packs on our backs. Eventually a cop points us in the right direction and we find the hotel, the Monterey. It's a nice, very new place but with an '80s style and it has a wedding chapel that is one of Kyoto's many wedding factories.
Kyoto is a storied city with a long history and classic temples and shrines that attract millions of tourists. The sites are spectacular with 50 foot Buddhas, shogun fortresses, and geishas keeping appointments as evening falls. But every city suffers from excessive attention and the Japanese politeness seems insincere while every business is geared towards the tourist.
Seeking a break from the delicious (to my taste anyway) and ubiquitous noodles as well as getting more raw greens, we head to an organic restaurant called the Sunshine Cafe. After a good meal we walk down to the Kamo river before buying some crepes from a little stand before returning to our hotel for some shuteye.
Getting tired of smacking my head.......
September 24th, 2008
This morning, early in the wee hours (no pun intended....just read on), I could not hold it any longer and had to get up off the floor (no beds here), stiff as heck, and tiptoe out to use the comunal bathrooms.
The giant Kirin bomber we had with dinner was ready to make an exit.
Gently and quietly slipping on the hallway slippers (1 of 3 varieties...see day 7), and trying to make as little noise as possible (the walls are paper thin at a ryokan, in fact, they ARE paper), I turn around and SMACK, knock my head on wooden beam.
So much for not waking up the neighboors.
At least I bit my tongue and held in several obsenities....not that they would have understood them (see day 7).
Oh well, what can you do?
At least they had one western toilet so we didn't have to squat.
Breakfast was another huge spread, about 10 courses, nothing really resembling any Western items though.
It's all funky pickeled things, fish, strange vegetables, a purple egg thing, miso soup and rice.
Rest of the day was spent strolling around, taking a nap by the river, and pretty much doing nothing.
The ryokan is really the only thing in “town”, plus a convenience store next door that sells Japanese moonshine and ice cream.
We have purchased and consumed several of each.
I can't feel my legs.........
September 23rd, 2008
Today we got up at 5am and journeyed 9 hours to get to a tiny, middle of nowhere town called Ryojin Onsen to stay at a tiny ryokan (traditional Japanese Inn), that has very tiny ceilings that I'm constantly hitting my head on.
The women giggled as I had to be given a men's robe to wear to the hot spring baths instead of a women's robe.
Not so hilarious for me, but story of my life...moving on,
Anyway, no one speaks any English here, like really, none at all.
It was kind of scary at first, but I am having to speak Japanese and since I have not spoken any since freshman year in college, it is some pretty slow going.
Thank goodness our guide book had some ettiiquette tips on ryokan inns, because I don't know enough Japanese to have understood all the rules you are supposed to follow in these places.
As an example, there are 3 kinds of slippers you are supposed to wear at different locations in the inn.
People stay at these places mostly to sit in hot baths that are shared with people of the same sex.
You must scrupulously clean yourself in advance as you are using the same unclorinated bath water that the whole inn is using (albeit constantly replenished from the springs so the water is clean.)
At our ryokan, there is a shared outdoor bath that couples can use for 20 minutes at a time.
It overlooks a lovely river and forest.
When you stay at a ryokan, it includes dinner and breakfast served in your room.
Both meals are a huge spread of little dishes you can sample.
Dinner tonight was fourteen courses!
It is quite a spectacle to watch our host, a kimono clad 20ish girl, try to even fit all the
little bowls and plates on the table.
In fact, she couldn't and had to wait until we ate a few things she could clear away.
After dinner, the host spreads your futons out on the tatami mats (there are no chairs or any Western furniture in the room, it's just tatami mats) and all the guests are pretty much asleep by 10pm.
No furniture means you are constantly sitting on the floor or trying to fit ourselves under tables that are about 8 inches high.
Every time we stand up, we have to limp around for a bit, waiting to get feeling back into our appendages!
From trendy Tokyo teenagers to the Nagano retirement scene
September 22nd, 2008
Today we took a train 35 minutes to a small 12,000 person town/suburb of Nagano called Obuse.
The town is famous for a sake distillery, chestnut candy (there are chestnut groves everywhere), and several art museums.
Apparently, it is a huge tourist destination for many older Japanese people.
We were the only Gaijins in sight, and the only couple under 45.
It was a nice day of strolling around the town gardens, eating at two of the traditional Japanese restaurants in town, looking at the old houses, and stuffing our faces with chestnut pasteries and candy.
Tokyo Alarm Clock......
September 21st, 2008
Well, this morning, it was an earthquake.
Hopefully my only.
About 7:30am, it felt like someone shook the bed a few good hard tugs.
We realized it was indeed an earthquake.
A small one, but you could feel it for about half a minute.
Cool to feel that for the first time, but not since I watched a show on how Tokyo is overdue for a giant quake that will send half the city into the ocean!
So, it was a good day to leave for Nagano, the interior of Tokyo and site of a winter Olympics not so long ago.
The cool thing was getting to ride the shinkansen (bullet train) for the first time.
It is a cool experience to travel at 170 mph on the ground and feel like you are floating.
One hour later and we are in Nagano, a town nestled in a valley surrounded by mountains and orchards.
It's a pretty sprawling town, but the center has a really lovely shrine that is still active.
We strolled up to it the first night, right at closing, but we could still sit outside and listen to the monks chanting and beating their drums while the evening set in.
Tokyo Cancun......
September 20th, 2008
Today was spent moving to a new hotel in another section of Tokyo called Roppongi.
It is the heart of the business district and where a lot of gaijins hang out.
It was an event to simply make this move, taking several hours to make all the proper transfers on the subway system, but we made it.
Too early to check in, we headed to the Ginza area.
Ginza is the old school shopping area of Tokyo, where all the Tokyo ladies who have made shopping their profession hang out at Prada, Gucci, Tiffany, Pucci, you name it.
This area also holds Tokyo's oldest Kabuki Theater.
You can buy tickets for one act of this 4 hour play- thank goodness too because it's not the most interesting of the performing arts....but we left feeling a bit more cultured and headed to a traditional tea house for a drink.
The tea house was the day's highlight.
Tucked descreetly into one of Ginza's shopping streets, in a narrow 3 level modern shop dedicating a level to each of three varieties of tea.
We chose matcha....3rd floor please.
Sitting in a very zen like room with silver walls and very simple benches, a quiet and very deferential woma n served us 3 kinds of matcha tea with some traditional rice sweets.
The best deal in Tokyo, getting a really cool, healthy, and tasty cultural experience for $5.
That night we hit the Roppongi nightlife which was pretty disappointing.
The similarity in feel to Cancun, Mexico was distressing....think lots of drunk gaijins groping, silly, giggling Japanese girls.
Complete with a TGI Fridays and Tokyo Hark Rock.
How many Japanese does it take to cut off one fish head......?
September 19th, 2008
To the Tsujiki Fish Market.....Cori was not so happy about getting up at 5:30am to go see the world's largest fish market, but I have not acclimated to the time change yet and woke up early (more like Rebecca was bouncing of the walls)....so no sweat off my back...hehe.
Anyway, it was worth it.
You certainly don't see this every day.....blocks and blocks of fish wholesalers inside a giant warehouse where at any second you might get run over by a speeding forklift.
They put up with a few tourists walking around, but they seriously will run you over if you get in their way....and it's jam packed with tight little alleys to walk through and see all the goods for sale.
Every form of seafood imaginable (half alive, half dead) surrounds you, the floors are slippery wet with blood and fish guts.
You see huge frozen tuna laid out like giant black torpedoes with yellow stickers marked on them with prices.
Everywhere you look, vendors are sawing up giant tuna with table saws.
And the answer to the question....it takes 3 Japanese to saw the head off one of the large tunas.
One holds the fish down and two other use a band saw to remove the head.
The whole experience is very impressive from an economic and cultural perspective, but for us it was also important to keep in mind that everything for sale there had been alive and had more significance in the world
than just as a piece of shasimi.
After the fish market, we went to the Imperial Palace.
The Emperor invited us in for tea, but we politely declined, instead returning back to our teeny tiny hotel room in Shinjuku area for some nap time.
Later on, we decided to spend some more time walking around Shinjuku area.
We put on our hippest Ex Officio travel pants and sneakers in our best attempt to try to fit in with the throngs of tremendously fashionable teenagers that spend their nights carousing the area.
But we failed.
No one told us that the latest styles for young men these days involves 80s style hair and shiny tight suits, think Motley Crew dressed up as Elton John.
While woman all wear thigh high leg warmers and shorts.
Apparently we hit Tokyo in the midst of the latest trend, Lady Bars.
Basically, it is the reverse of the geisha girl concept.
Young adolescent girls pay young adolescent boys to talk to them.
The boys are dressed up with the most insane hairdos you can imagine, in tight shiny or pinstripe suits.
They stand on street corners in groups and approach girls trying to strike up a conversation.
They then take the girl back to the Lady Bar club where they have drinks and just talk.
But they talk about her instead of him.
Apparently, in the male-oriented (mysoginistic?) society of Japan, there is a big market for a service where girls just want to talk to a boy and they are the center of the conversation.
In every-day society women have to politely listen to the men, act shy, and not interupt, but in these bars, they get to talk about themselves.
I am left wondering who first realized the market need for this service?
Anyway, we saw these adolescent boys nearly everywhere in Tokyo, unmistakable in their get-ups and hairdos.
Only in Japan could you accidentally order an alcohol drink at 10am from a vending machine.......
September 18th, 2008
Conveniently located right next to our hotel:
Starbucks and Krispy Kreme.
We went for a morning Starbucks today....not many Japanese kissatens near-by, so we have to resort to the American chains....oh well.
I order a grande and it is probably the only one they sold all day.
All the Japanese order "short", a size smaller than tall, and one that they don't offer on the menu in the US.
I figure since I am about 40% taller than all the Japanese, it is okay to go for the grande.....also, I didn't know how to ask for 2 shots in a tall size in Japanese!
My Japanese vocab only allows for saying:
"I would like that please"....a bit limiting!
After people watching at Starbucks for awhile, we decide to walk to a near-by park:
Shinjuku Goen.
It is deserted and we have the run of the place, even the restaurant.
The park's restaurant has a ticket system where you place your order by buying tickets from a vending machine and then handing those tickets to the server.
Here is where we accidentally ordered a "Plum Drink" that turned out to be booze.
But the soup and rice sandwiches were delicious when washed down with our cocktail at 10am....hey, it's 5 o'clock somewhere!
The rest of the day is spent walking around the giant shopping malls that are located adjacent to the train stations.
Sometimes it seems like Tokyo is a town entirely of teenagers and college kids....but the trendiest ones you have ever seen.
At night we took the train (successfully!) to Shibuya, another huge area of shopping, gambling, movies, and redlight areas.
It is overwhelming!
Think Japanese Las Vegas.
All the department stores have about 3 or 4 floors dedicated just to food.
And we are here to find some dinner.
The basement floors are typically a grocery store and then miles and miles of grab-and-go options.
On upper levels of the department store, they will have a floor that is just what we would call "fast casual".
But think fast casual on steroids, with hordes of people, lines and vendors yelling out what they are serving while you weave your way around about 20 booths where they are cooking everything from stir-fry to mini Japanese waffles stuffed with things.
Then there is a whole additional floor or usually 2 floors dedicated just to restaurants.
Each floor will have about 5 restaurants to choose from.
So after about an hour of walking through this, we can't decide on anything so we just slip into one of the Japanese restaurants on one of the restaurant floors.
Food was delicious, but again, we had no idea what we were ordering because they have no English menus, no one speaks English, and the prices are not even listed in roman numerals, it is in Japanese.
After dinner, we hit the fancy Cerulan Park Tower's 40th floor bar for a drink.
$16 dollars per drink, but well worth the amazing panoramic view of Tokyo at night.
A city like none I've ever seen to be sure, totally breathtaking view.
September 17th
30 hours later.......
And we finally arrive!
Feeling sweaty, tired and cranky but still super excited to be here.
We exchange our JR (Japan Rail) Vouchers for the actual passes and get our tickets for a simple 60 minu of course we immediately screw up the boarding and get on the wrong one.
We immediately get back off at the next station but we've missed the direct train to Shinjuku Station so we end up taking the 85 minute ride from Narita Airport to Tokyo Station and then on to Shinjuku Station.
A little trial by fire figuring out the trains, but we make it.
Fighting our way through a throng of Japanese commuters we find the hotel....nicely located near one of the largest train stations in Tokyo and a huge shopping and entertainment area (Shinjuku).
I quickly realize that I (Rebecca) better start getting comfortable using Japanese as no one speaks English here and there are very few Western tourists around.
We ate at a random noodle spot next to the hotel by pointing at some pictures and shrugging our shoulders.
The results were tasty and we received pork noodle bowls.
Ahhhh, sleep.
In The Air
September 15th-16th, 2008
We flew Denver to LAX and had 4 hours to kill before the flight so we hitched a ride on a parking shuttle to get a last taste of the purest and best A In and Out Burger. D'lish!
With our cravings sated we headed to the gate to board our flight to Hong Kong. LAX has the nastiest international gates of any first world country but we're sure to find some bad ones soon.
Once in the air we try to sleep and watch movies that are still fresh.
Cathay Pacific has a very nice entertainment system that allows you to choose and paues movies with only a few commercials at the beginning that can be fast forwarded through.
The day is here!
September 15th, 2008
Off to vote and running a bunch of last minute errands.
A rental property we have in Westminster suffered hail damage so I spent the better part of yesterday with the claims adjuster going over the damage.
Ultimately I was cut a check on the spot to replace the roof. Now I have to figure out how to do that from the other side of the world!
We have bulkhead seats for the long haul trip from LAX to Hong Kong. I think I'll be sleeping for much of the flight as being busy and the stress has prevented me from getting much lately.
1 Day to go!!!
September 14th, 2008
We are frantically packing and getting ready. There are still some bills to pay, travel insurance to buy, dog to love, stuff to buy and return to REI, and Powers of Attorney to grant. And votes to cast at the Go Obama!
We are going to Asia because of distance from North America, making it harder to go to when encumbered by kids. And we don't have kids. Yet.
We are using the All Asia Pass from Cathay Pacific. We purchased it from Jane at Boulder Travel. The pass allows you do get heavily discounted airfare, with various options but generally routed through Hong Kong, in Asia. We have 16 legs purchased through the pass and the cost is close to $150 per leg. Pretty good value considered we're flying all the way from Denver, Colorado.
We will be flying from Denver, to LA, to Hong Kong, to Tokyo.
Leaving from Osaka, Japan we will fly back to Hong Kong for 5 days before flying to Vietnam (Saigon/ HoChiMinh City.) After some internal travel, we will fly (through Hong Kong) to Delhi, India.
More internal travel there, and we will be flying to Bali (through Hong Kong.) 23 days (including our 3rd wedding anniversary) and we are flying home on Dec 7th. Hong Kong, to LA, to a (already delayed) flight to Denver.
I will try and get more info on the All-Asia-Pass. You can e-mail me as well.
What to bring?
We tried to pack light. But that can be hard, especially when you are going to numerous countries. We plan on shipping some stuff back thast we might buy or no longer need in later countries.
Our biggest weight is books (yes, we are insane!)
Books in our Bags
- Neal Stephenson
- Gregory David Roberts
- Ken Follet
- Rough Guide
- Not sure
- Not sure
- Guidebook
- Guidebook
- Guidebook
Drugs/Prophylaxis
Prophylaxis (pharmecueitical, pro-biotic, physical) and recovery (drugs, hidration, anti-biotics) are critical to bring with you on any major trip. They can help you quickly recover and move on and save the trip from disaster. I will post a list of everything we brought and why and put up some links to information on location specific malaria info.
Contact info:
Cori Ewing
Phone is not an option.The images of our e-mail addresses are meant to avoid spam harvesting. If you can't read it, our address are our full names
Rebecca Baack
Emergency business contact:
Adam Miltenberger (my step brother) at 303-596-9148
Our yoga studio.
My nascent property management and real estate investment firm.}