helpful information viewing photos and video clips

Hi--I noticed that the setting on the Youtube videos may be at 240p. If you want better resolution--you can change that setting to 480p. This is a bit better for viewing. Also, there is a setting for increasing the size of your viewing screen in the lower right hand corner. If/when you are viewing the photos, if you double click on the photo you can see it in a full screen size. You might have figured all these things out already, but I thought I'd send you a few hints. BTM

Phuquoc Island film-January 31st

more Phuquoc photos

On our way to Ho Chi Minh City on the overnight train

"BBQ sea urchins-spines removed--with peanut/fish sauce inside

a classic fishing boat-constructed on Phuquoc Island

Sao beach...on the east side of the island...perfect white sands instead of the perfect yellow sand on the west side

Phuquoc Island photos-the northern part of the island

Today we ventured up into the northern part of the island with our guide Binh. He was very informative and spoke quite good English so he could explain many things we've been wondering about. The main "ingredients" of the island are--fishing, growing pepper kernals (the spice), making world famous fish sauce and tourism. Binh said tourism arrived to the island perhaps 15 years ago. They are still constructing a good road to the north and the road to the south is mostly still red clay. So the infrastructure is slowly, slowly progressing.  I have to say that the beach we swam at today was the nicest I've ever seen--it was absolutely incredible. Today for lunch I had the freshest calamari I've ever tasted--I'm sure it was caught off the restaurant's seawall and/or dropped off by a fisherman this morning. We talked about the politics in Vietnam a bit so Duncan can fill you in on this aspect of the day's adventures. BTM

eating the raw black pepper kernals right off the tree

the perfect swim....

...at the perfect beach

p.s. by the way... we did listen to BBC news this morning so we are aware of the unrest in Egypt, Tunisia and Russia. Not much different from The Fall of the Giants (which I'm just finishing) and the rise of the Bolsheviks!!! We are safe and well here.

Phu Quoc Island

Greetings from Phu Quoc! This is a lovely spot--a small island just south of Cambodia and off the SW coast of Vietnam. It is undeveloped and development is slow at this point. There appear to be some larger hotels under construction. We are staying at a place called the "Seastar" which has bungalows on the beach. It's lovely because the air is clear, warm and sunny. The water is clear, warm and sunny too!--85 degrees perhaps. So, we've been swimming a lot. Our boat trip yesterday was fun, but a bit sad to see that the reefs off the islands are not in good shape. This could be because of global changes in water temps, but our impression is that many tourists swim around and trample on the coral. The tours go out to the islands but nary a word was spoken to us about not standing on the reef and coral. Perhaps the locals are unaware. That said... they were very proud to prepare a lunch treat of some sea urchins that we ate in the shell (once it was de-spiked) and then again in some soup. Not bad--I gobbled down both options. Jesse "flipped" over the snorkeling and loved it--so I'm sure there's more of that in his future. Of course now talking about wanting to do some SCUBA. Also--his impression of the driving regulations aren't quite accurate. Despite what he may say...I've been letting him ride around a bit with me, but he's underage and it's not allowed. Peter Traver will appreciate this fact since he and I drove around illegally on our Hondas for years! Anyway--this is a special place. We'll visit the northern part of the island tomorrow and tell you more about the history and their claim to fame--fish sauce! BTM

Phu Coc

my fish #1

My fish #2

Yesterday we went swimming over some coral!!! The fish are really cool colored and friendly!  I had never   really been snorkeling so it was a treat! We fished for our lunch and I caught 2 fish that were big-ish. The boat was nice (except I fell and badly brused my foot).Is it snowey there. I got a major sun burn here so it is      most likely not like there. There are tons of little bunglo cabins here and they are nice and snug. We've have been watching soccer here and today I got 1 soccer shirt and shorts for $6. It is fun to ride around on motor bike and explore here because I can drive!! There is no age you have to be before you can drive so I can just drive around even with out mom.!   :) JM

Fishing on a river

 Today I got my shoes from the woman who made them. They rock!!  :)  They are made out of silk fabric and colored leather. They were $18!!

 We are going to the beach to fly our kite. It is still overcast and windy. It has not been sunny yet since Laos!  :(

We enjoy Skypeing with people so if you have time E-mail us so we can “show you around”.

I am making a video of our adventures in Vietnam and Laos so don’t worry if you are not getting the scoop.

Mom is doing a cooking class today and I think it will be good. We went to the place where they have the class (which has their own restaurant so we actually ate there and luckily the food was great! They left in the morning at 6:00 and woke me up!  :)  They go and get their produce at the market and then go out to the cooking classes island to make their food.

The rice is really hard to grow for the farmers and they have to pick up plant by plant at a time and it is “back breaking work”. The rice plants only have 1-6 grains on them. The process takes a few months!!!

Last night we had fun playing pool!!! :)

 Down town in Hoi An 

  Dinner at the TAM TAM cafe'

 Me making clay pottery!!

Games on the beach!!

JESSE :)

More Observations and Images

Duncan here.  We’re on our last day in the central Vietnam fishing village of Hoi An. The past 4 days have been a peaceful change of pace from the much larger cities of Hanoi and Hue. Tomorrow we take an overnight train to Ho Chi Minh City, and a flight to Phu Quoc island near Cambodia.

An altar with offerings in front of a store for good luck

A fisherman paddling past a rice field outside Hoi An

A cool lunch spot with Canadian friends

The fishing town of Hoi An in central Vietnam

Here are a few recent observations from Vietnam: We generally spend $1/day to rent a bike, $3-4 for a full meal with drinks and dessert, $12/person for nice quality lodging with breakfast;  Even in cities it’s common to see women or men in conical hats lugging two baskets of fruit or other goods balanced across their shoulders with a bamboo pole; even in cities random chickens peck at the side of  busy street; virtually all businesses and homes have small alters with offerings to ancestors and local gods;  as we approach Tet (Chinese New Year Feb. 3-5) business owners set out elaborate tables of food and other offerings and light Joss sticks to seek a prosperous and lucky New Year; rice paddies are squeezed in between buildings and alleys in all but the most urban areas of areas – Vietnam is the second largest rice producer in the world;  it's very difficult for Vietnamese to get passports and leave the country, so while we foreigners can visit then, few of them can visit us (even if they could afford to do so);  power outages are fairly frequent -- sometimes the power goes off 2 or 3 times a day;   The majority of Vietnamese cannot afford a car or truck.  As a result, here are some goods we’ve spotted being carried by local Vietnamese on motorbikes or cyclos – a few thousand eggs, a refrigerator, an armoir, long ladders, 300 coconuts, and a small billboard.  

More about Hoi An

In Hoi An it has been really nice but a bit over cast and a bit rainy. So far we have done many things. One day we went to the beach and went body surfing. We woke up to a relatively loud busy city. I like it the most. We went next door to get a buffet breakfast and it was good. We went just outside to a guy who rents bikes and got some. We rode to a good spot on the cost and made goals out of coconuts and started some beach soccer. No one came to play but it was still fun. We decided to go body surfing. We went out and got some 7 foot waves. J  A lot of fun. We biked home after a good day.

I also got some custom shoes made for home for $18 with my name etched and all. They are so cool I will upload some pics' soon. J JM

Hue to Hoi An

When we left off I was talking about Vientiane and we are now in Hoi An. I will fill you in. We got on a plane in Vientiane and flew 1 hour to Hanoi. The flight was very good and (seemed) short. We arrived in Hanoi to stay 2 days and for the first day just walked around. For dinner the first night in Hanoi mom wanted to go to this place called Golden Land. Supposedly this place was good. They were famous for a dish with fish called Cha Ca. A person who lives in Vietnam told us of it. (aka mom’s friend). So we wandered around for 2 hours (Eli Mosk tell Mrs. Bates again) to no avail. (The place moved/ went out of business) “I thought it was here” mom said.(As you can see we did not know it moved.) So after 10:00 pm we went to a nice place on a corner of the road near our place and ate dinner.

 The next day I was sick, I up-chucked 4 times. 3 in the room and one on the street outside next to all the on lookers with their OMG GET AWAY FROM ME!!!!! faces on. We took a taxi to the train station and got in our own berth. It was loud with some stupid people from Australia with a radio turned all the way up with terrible music blaring from the speakers. (Oblivious about people around them). Some how I got to sleep and woke up in Hue. It was gray and over cast. (Mom thought the bathroom was even worse than on the bus!!!)

A driver picked us up from the train station and drove us to the Sports One Hotel. The hotel had no reason for the name; sports were not related to the hotel. The room was really nice and after a bath I was good as new (Sick wise). I had a sleep and woke up to an overcast Hue’. The next few days were rainy and cold. We wandered around the royal city and saw the wreckage from the bombing and asked our selves “why”? We endured a few more cold days and took a sleeping bus, which was GREAT!!! With beds and soft pillows for 4 hours. I wanted to be on the bus longer! We went to Hoi An which we are in now and LOVE IT!!    *)    JM  

Mr. Trung's Village-Hoi An

Kuangsi Falls Luang Prabang LAOS

We had a great trip into the falls and as you can see the boys enjoyed the rope swing too--BTM

Mahout Camp-Luang Prabang Laos

Mahout Camp in Laos was fun!

Body Surfing in Hoi An

Hue and Hoi An--a history lesson

We have arrived to Hoi An in central Vietnam after visiting Hue for two days. Our internet connection has been a bit spotty and we've been on the move, so we haven't posted much lately.... so we'll have to catch you up.

I think at this point in our trip, we are learning about the ancient and modern eras of Vietnam history. The history of the "American War" and the victories of Ho Chi Minh against the French are finally coming into better focus in my mind. To be at the Citadel in Hue, walking through the "Forbidden City" and to cruise the countryside with Jesse on moto, exploring the tombs of the Emperors has been fascinating. Our weather has been overcast with light rain, but the temps have warmed heading south so we are content and hopeful for the sun to return.

The morning of our train trip (we left at 7pm) from Hanoi to Hue, Jesse awoke with an upset stomach! He bravely faced it all and lay in bed sleeping and watching soccer -when he could lift his head! At 5:50pm after a hot shower he was able to walk down the 5, steep, narrow flights from our room to the lobby to say goodbye to the matrons ("gude byeYessie...sank you forh coming heeah"). His face was as pale as could be but he was very polite and thanked them for the extra blankets. I wasn't really worried because he had no fever and had started to feel better after the shower... a bit... Our taxi driver navigated the bustling streets to get us to the sleeper train on time and we quickly loaded up our gear, settled into our somewhat scankie compartment and got Jesse tucked into his little bed. We had some rowdie Aussis in the next compartment who sprayed their compartment with Lysol... not a bad idea for next time! Mercifully, Jesse was starting to have a little color in his cheeks by 8pm and by 11pm was chatting a bit more and asking for some water for the first time. Frankly, I was glad he was a little dehydrated because he never had to pee all night, ergo--never had to visit the scuzzie WC on the train...things were looking up!

In Hue we were met by our hotel guys who ferried us to our humble abode for the next 2 days--Sports Hotel #1. Not sure where they come up with these names? The hotel room was large and the hotel had an elevator. Up on the 5th floor again. It had 2 huge, double beds with decent linens and despite the dampness, it was great. Once we turned the heater on the whole room was transformed into our little, cozy spa. There was plenty of hot water to clean up and start to put the train trip behind us. Jesse woke up after a 4 hour nap feeling like his old self (relief!!!) and ready to have some fried rice.

We spent the afternoon walking around Hue and the Citadel. It was raining lightly and not very compelling to rent a moto to cruise the city, so we took it easy. Duncan had more energy than we did so he took a right turn and went deeper into the Hue neighborhoods while Jesse and I had 4 0'clock tea at the fancy Saigon Hotel which was very chic in a French colonial way, and we enjoyed the view of the gardens with large, red, salvia blooming everywhere--and a slice of banana tart. For dinner we changed gears and went to an Indian restaurant for some yummie food that was spicy and different from the Vietnamese fare. Jesse stuck to Nahn bread, a banana shake and rice with a veggie fritter and all was well with his stomach.


On day two in Hue, we went on a city tour with a group of other touristas. We had an English speaking guide and we learned more about the Emperors and what their live were like. Hue was the capital of Vietnam from around 1802-1945. It was so cool! Within the Forbidden City they had a special residences for the Emperess and the Grand Emperess. There were stenciled porticos connecting all of the  buildings. Unfortunately over 70% of the buildings within the Citadel were bombed and ruined by the US in 1974. Can you imagine the impact of this loss to the Vietnamese? They are trying to rebuild everything over the next 20 years, but I can't imagine... I hope it happens in my lifetime because I would definitely return to see that. Even the concubines had their special residences (outside the Forbidden City of course). Duncan thought the idea of having over 100 concubines was an interesting concept and worth considering.

Day three before we left on our bus to Hoi An: Jesse and I contrived a countryside adventure to visit the Tombs of the Emperors. We rented a moto and cruised out into the countryside of Hue and visited two tombs. I will upload some photos from the trip. It was fascinating to see. Most of the Emperors designed and built their tombs while they were living. Each one is different of course. Some more ornate and others beautiful gardens, walkways, pavilions, honour gardens, ponds and steps and old trees and walls with exquisite tile work and mozaics throughout. Jesse was very curious and seemed to be truly interested in these dead guys! For me... I had fun in my imagination considering what life must have been like at that time%$#@^&*???

heading into Te Duc's Tomb

The honour garden leading into the tomb

The mandarins, horse and elephant chinese figures --can not exceed the height of the Emperor

Reading during a fairly frequent power outage in Hue

The Emperor's Theater in the Forbidden City at the Citadel-Hue

Overall--wow, my lasting impression of Hue--how could the Americans have bombed and ruined over 200 years of history? I will talk more about Hoi An in the next post. It is lovely!!!! BTM

Images of Hanoi

Our last day in cool, smoggy, noisy Hanoi.  This evening at 7 pm we take an overnight train to Hue, and warmer weather and quieter streets.  After lots of walking through swirling Hanoi streets, here are a few random images:

Many electric poles are encircled in spaghetti-like masses of thin electric wires, with knots sometimes two and three feet thick. Makes me glad I'm not a Lineman here.  Walking down one city block I spotted ten men on the sidewalk separated by short intervals, each holding a hacksaw and waiting for a customer.  Need something cut?  That's where you go.  At night some people kneel on the sidewalks in front of a small, square-shaped stoves burning fake paper money as offerings to the Gods.  You'd think Gods might be able to tell the difference between fake and real money.  Almost no stop signs or traffic lights in his incredibly busy city.  When traffic from four directions enters a city intersection the cars, motorcycles, pedestrians, porters, and bicycle cyclos all slide together like shuffling a colorful deck of cards.  Miraculously, this happens hours at a time with virtually no accidents (but thousands of horns honking).   Temples and shrines full of clouds of joss sticks and people praying as Tet (Chinese New Year) approaches Feb 3-5. Lots of red banners throughout the the city celebrating Hanoi's 1,000th anniversary!

Enjoy the snow (and fresh air) for us!  Duncan

Shuttlecock Game

We are all quite taken with the shuttlecock game we discovered. Only to find out that it now has an international following in a long history in China. Read the information below from Wikipedia--fascinating. Jesse talked about our adventures last night and it was amazing to see the skills of our group. Our circle spread and spread and spread last night and we were all laughing and having a blast together. I have to say the women were the best players in the group! (me not included! but I'm making good progress) Jesse and Duncan can play this game anywhere and we don't have to worry about the soccer ball traveling off into the streets. See below:

Jiànzi (毽子), ti jian zi (踢毽子), ti jian (踢毽) or jiànqiú (毽球) is a traditional Asian game in which players aim to keep a heavily weighted shuttlecock in the air using their feet and other parts of the body (but not hands, unlike the similar games peteca and indiaca). The game, which goes by many different names (seebelow), may be rules-based on a court similar to badminton and Volleyball, or be played artistically, among a circle of players in a street or park, with the objective to keep the shuttle 'up' and show off skills. In Vietnam, it is known as đá cầu and is the national sport, played especially in Hanoi.

In recent years, the game has gained a formal following in Europe, the United States and elsewhere.

In English, both the sport and the object with which it is played are referred to as "shuttlecock" or "featherball". No racquets are used.

Amazing... to discover this fun thing! BTM

Last Night

After having dinner we went to a statue where previously I had break danced (but we got there to late). We   got a thing called a ying pai. It is a make shift soccer ball thing except you don't play soccer you juggle it. It also makes a piiinnnnngggggg sound. We started to play that under the statue and people started coming to play. At the most we got 20 people playing at once. We played from 8:00 to 11:00. Eli (mosk) tell Mrs. Bates!  We had a lot of fun but we did not bring a camera!  :(   JM

Vientiane

The Monks receiving morning alms of sticky rice

A novice monk studying-late afternoon

Khemer King someone conquered Laos

We started out in laos (luang prabang) and ended is Vien tiane. You might guess how we got there... well for starters we got up at 7:00 am and got into a rickety old took took (cheapest way of transport) to the bus station and waited for our tickets. ( There was a soccer game going on the TV so it wasn't all boring.) The tickets were for a seat on the bottom of the bus. (so far so good.) We got the bus and studied it. It looked sanitary enough. (but we were only on the out side.) We got in side and the ceiling was claustrophobically low!!!!!!!!!!!! (good word huh?) Even I had to bow down to the floor. Dad was even worse but I liked it, it was like a cave. It had a nice TV (that probably did not work) that added to the cool-ness. So reluctantly we (I) went to go get different tickets. We ended up in the back row on the top of the bus. Super bumpy!!!!!!!!   :(   Dad was up more front with his ticket seat. He was so lucky. The trip was ok over all and worse bus rides have happened so I guess it was 7 out of 10. One crazy thing that occurred was they literally gave you a pink plastic bag if you got sick. Once I went to the bathroom on the bus ( also crazy tiny) and regretted it immediately. Since we were going through the main mountain range it was really bumpy and we were in the back as I said the "most bumpy part of the bus" I got thrown 4 feet right of the dot in to a lady that was coughing badly. That was also one of the problems on the bus, germs. Any way I got up and crawled down the steps to the bathroom.  As I was in the bathroom the bus would make these sudden random turns. I was crashing in to the walls so hard I bet you guys heard. I had to close the toilet for fear of falling in. After that experience I got thrown to my seat and stayed there sitting  happy not to be chucked all around the bus. A few times we stopped for bathroom breaks and lunch. Lunch looked good but alas had the servers hair got in and all tangled up in mini balls in the food, not so good. I was not hungry after that. We got back on the bus and for the rest of the time I slept and read on the bus. Ok after 11 hours "we got to our final destination" as a tom tom would say. We got into another took took and rode 2 miles to a random place in the middle of the city of Vientiane. Stranded so to say.




The next morning we got up to a loud noisy city.Our hotel was called lani #1. Luckily we were a ways back from the road. I woke to tell mom about my great dream I forgot then and there and to have breakfast. All I had was good old bread butter and jam. Then we walked to the mekong river beach which was quite long. We walked past a statue of some guy and stopped to play soccer for a few min. We decided that we were drawing attention to our selves so we left. While we were playing we heard from some guy that people played soccer on the sandy beaches at the sun set. We said that we might come to that game and play. We wandered around the city walking in to book stores eating street food. We wandered into a guy that had a thing like a shuddle coc but you juggle it. It makes a great PPPPIIIINNNNNGGGGG sound when you hit it. We got one for the Drakes and the Brookens if you are reading this it is called a Ying pai. It is great fun. Then we went home for reading and a nap and then renewed got up to play soccer at the beach.


We walked to the beach and saw some bodies moving far down the beach. As I said the beach is very vast. I was careless enough to trip and skin my arms. We ran as fast as we could over in the area that the people were playing but when we got there there were people walking away. The game had just ended. Bummer! We walked back to the side walk and juggled our new ying pai and went for dinner.



At the restaurant that we chose to go to there was a pool table and it was on the top of a building. Awesome! After dinner we wandered back home to take a long sleep after a long day!   :) JM

Discovering Vientiane-Sunday January 16th

Garden Orchids

Hammer and Sickle

Learning about International Relations

At work on Sunday on the Mekong Shore

Jesse and his new friend playing "ying pai"

Jesse the monkey prince

Greetings--Here are some of the photos from our prowl around Vientiane today. We are looking forward to going back down to the Mekong River shoreline (a block from our guesthouse) this evening for sunset to play the new game we discovered..."Ying Pai". It is a Chinese game like hackie sack that was introduced to us when we met a Dutch fellow playing in the main square by the fountain today. We are finding the weather warmer here. We enjoyed the "National Museum" which someone has put a tremendous amount of work into. The artifacts and the building itself were quite impressive in that they have a wonderful collection of old photos and an excellent series of displays detailing their rather current history and independence in 1975. But it was quite down-trodden overall. I was sadly intrigued by a map of Laos showing the density of areas bombed by the US during the Vietnam war--?#$%@&*?!!!--what a senseless initiative! and we still haven't learned from our mistakes it seems. We find the people mostly content with their way of government at this point but the degree of poverty is striking overall. There is a lot of development here in the capital and it appears that along the waterfront they are making a huge effort to create a gathering spot to attract visitors. Very interesting here and Jesse intrigued with "Ying Pai". We also found a public pool so we are considering a swim this afternoon. I am still recovering from my green papaya salad which was wicked spicy. BTM

Back in Vientiane (after 20 years)

We made it to Vientiane, the capital of Laos, after an 11-hour trip on a local bus south from Luang Prabang.  It was a long journey, but not as bad as it could have been.  The bus was air-conditioned and fairly comfortable, but two of our three seats were in the very last row where five people sit  shoulder to shoulder, and that row has the biggest bounce for the money when the bus goes over a bump.  The scenery (alas through dirty windows, so no pictures) was amazing.  The mountains we navigated were steep and at times surreal, like tall, thick melted candles scattered across a table after a long night's party.  The bus zigzagged up and around these obstructions, and we were given a direct view of life in rural habitations.  Most kids (4-12 years old) were out gathering some sort of wheat-like plant, cutting it, thrashing it on the side of the road, and lining it up in long rows to dry.  Other kids were gathering wood.  Toddlers stumbled about a few feet from the passing bus.  The houses were mostly thatched.  Ironically, while the areas around the houses are clean -- swept, with neat piles of wood - trash blows everywhere and noone seems to pick it up.  The villages needed a good Green Up Day.  It looked like in a few hours a handful of people could clean an entire village of blowing trash.  But perhaps more would come, so they don't.

The bus stopped three times - twice for a bathroom break (with all the men running for the nearest bush, and all the women paying 1,000 kip for a stall) and once a lunch break. A plain but tasty meal of rice, veggies, and meat/gristle was plopped on a plate -- included in the bus price of $15 / person for the 11-hour trip.

The bus dropped us off 10 km outside Vientiane.  We piled into a Tuk Tuk with 8 other folks and navigated through thick,  smoke-belching traffic.  I visited Vientiane exactly 20 years ago this month and then  it was a sleepy, forgotten town with almost no outside visitors.  I left after a couple of days because after seeing the local Wats and a few wandering dogs there was nothing to do.  This time we'll leave after a couple of days because it has become a big, bustling city with too much going on.  It feels like a Laotian version of Hanoi.  Thanks to our friend Perri Black's recommendation, we found a quiet guesthouse down an alley next to a Wat.  It was a big relief because the streets seemed so noisy when we arrived at 8 pm.  After a revivifying shower we had a nice dinner at a Lao/Indian/Western restaurant, watched some 'football' on TV, and crashed.  Today we'll explore the city, at 4 pm Jesse and I will walk to the National Stadium with our ball to see if we can join a game, and then we'll look for a man we've heard about  with a stall on the riverside who is said to serve up some amazing Indian food for dinner.  Saabaidee!  Duncan

"Authentic Alley"

This "post" has some photos about the food and markets around LP. I have experimented in both. Last night we went into what we call the "authentic alley" where a variety of vendors put out big plates of local specialties for 10,000kip/plate ($1.25) for as much as you can pile on. It is a narrow alley full of locals selling and travelers buying food-- with tables set up for people to eat and share stories about where they're from and where they are going. Jesse decided on fried vegetable egg rolls, rice noodles with a fish sauce mixture and veggie stir fried rice. I chose much the same but added chile and lime with cilantro to spice it up a bit. All of which is plentiful. Duncan added some fresh green veggies as well. As a salad lover and gardener I can honestly say I have never tasted fresher greens and herbs --the salads are amazing. It's as if it's August in Vermont and the Simpson lettuce is at it's prime, cherry tomatoes at their peak and scallions bursting. Our plates were reheated on the matron's wok and then we sat down at a communal table to share our supper with a traveler from Malaysia. There were plenty of chop sticks and napkins, scraps of rice and crumbs from the previous diner and an ice cold Beer Lao to share. The food was tasty, nothing particularly different from what we have been eating, but the atmosphere and presentation were "legendary" as Jesse proclaimed. There are photos here of the Hmung night market as well. I have enjoyed bargaining for 15,000 kip silk scarves, silk table top runners, cotton scarves, carved wooden elephants (they are so cute!) and some jewelry--everything so cheap! Jesse bargained for a custom carved name stamp and a sling shot for 10,000 kip. Duncan isn't a big shopper, but broke down for a 20,000 kip t-shirt last night! Jesse has enjoyed his independence here unlike in Hanoi where his anxiety overtakes him and he'll commonly reach for my hand while navigating the streets there. But in LP there is a very communal feeling of sharing. You might be stumped by one photo here--the frying banana strips. This is my favorite afternoon snack and hard to resist since the little vendor is across from our guesthouse. They are delicious! 3,000 kip will get you a bag filled with these savory, oily, chewy wafers. Tomorrow morning we leave LP and I realize I might never return. There are just so many interesting places to visit in the world and very few occasions to do so. I will say good-bye to my favorite Buddha (pictured here as well) and thank him for his time. He has his own little tool shed sized Wat to stand in and I've enjoyed looking at him everyday across from our porch. Thank you LP. BTM