Sorry for the delay in posting, but without the camera postings just seemed to blah. So, the good news is, we have the camera back. With only a moderate struggle, they were able to replace the part, for a very reasonable cost, and we are back in business.
Vietnam has been really nice. After shopping and eating our fill with Chad in the very charming and tourist filled Hoi An, we headed to Da Nang. We actually visited a couple sights between Hoi An and Da Nang - including the Marble Mountains with caves of shrines that were packed with Vietnamese prayer makers and the Ba Na Hill station which we had to hitch a ride to the top of since it is technically closed for repairs. Both had stunning views and provided a good distraction from the backpacker's trail. Anyone headed here in 2015 should check out the renovated hill station - looks like quite a project.
From Da Nang we hopped a minibus to Kon Tum, about a 4 hour journey into the central highlands of Vietnam. Kon Tum is a very small town and the main reason to visit is to see some of the traditional hill tribe villages that are a close journey from town. We did check them out and although most still have some traditional "Rong Houses" - very cool long buildings on stilts that have awesome thatched roofs and are supposedly built with no nails - that is about all that is traditional about them. As we have felt checking out "traditional" villages before, there is a thin line between poor and traditional. Most of the time here it teeters more on the poor side of the line.
In Kon Tum we also had the interesting experience of meeting some Australian Vietnam veterans (2 were in Vietnam and one was actually a mine clearer in Cambodia) who were doing some work with the orphanages in Kon Tum. There are two "famous" ones, one connected to a beautiful church in town and one set back in the surrounding village. They are actually in the Lonely Planet so get a decent amount of tourists and while we were really expecting the worst, these places were not THAT bad. Do not get me wrong, it is sad, but the people who work there were incredibly loving and there are a decent amount of donations and many organizations like the one the guys we met were involved in helping out. We have seen a lot of poverty on the countryside here and it just makes you think that maybe some of these kids are better off, as sad as that is.
From Kon Tum we headed about another 4 hours to Buon Ma Thout, a coffee town, also with hill tribes. The coffee was as good as they claimed and the interesting traditional houses did provide some nice sight seeing. Personally, Buon Ma Thout won my heart with the street of roll your own Vietnamese Spring rolls. You just get all the fillings and stuff to your heart content. I love food with a process and the mixture of textures and tastes made me drool even hours after just thinking about it.
Last stop before coming back to Ho Chi Minh was Dalat, a beautiful little hill town about 6 hours from HCMC. Dalat is a bit of a domestic tourist town, people come to escape the heat, and it is really perfect for wandering. With a touch of French influenced architechture and downright cold weather in the evening, we had a great time walking everywhere. And due to the perfect weather, there was wonderful fruits and veg and we certainly indulged. Our only mistake was renting bikes one day - when you ask people who live in a hill town of the route is flat, note that their idea of what is flat might be VERY different than yours.
HCMC, despite the insane heat and even more insane driving habits (really these people are CRAZY on the roads in a way I have never seen before), is a really great city. We got back here on Sunday and decided to adventure to the Cao Dai Temple via local bus and while it was a schlep, the country is stunning and the temple was very peaceful and beautiful. And Chad treated us to what might have been my favorite dish so far - a deep fried fish, served with herbs, vermicelli, veggies and a delightful dill/fish sauce dip. You roll up what you want in the rice paper, dip and enjoy. The combination of the flakey fish and crunchy fried bits, along with the fresh herbs and that dip. Mmm...
Next stop is KL, where instead of mooching from the Canadian Embassy, we will mooch from the oil company employees and hang out with our friends Barb and Scott.
Our first stop in Malaysia was KL, where our friends Barb and Scott have a great place, not even a 10 minute walk from the Petronas Towers. We were both expecting KL to be a lot like Jakarta, but have found more similarities to Singapore. We spent a whole day wandering the city by foot, something you simply cannot do in Jakarta, the city is pretty clean and there are sidewalks. Already an improvement. While there is not that much to do/see per say and despite the intense humidity and daily rain, you can see the appeal of living here.
Day two we decided to check out the bird park, the largest walk in aviary in the world, and it is pretty incredible. (And this is coming from a girl who got pooped on by a lorikeet.) When you walk in immediately there is a dish of feed and some colorful birds flying around who land on your arms and eat from your hands. We discovered they are also fond of sweat as one latched on to Howie's back and and was nibbling at the back of his neck for quite some time. He had to be forcibly removed before we went into the next section of the park.
From there we encountered the second coolest thing in the park, which was a peacock who decided to show off his stuff and hopefully attract a female that was wandering by. He did not seem bothered by all the people watching, spread his gorgeous feathers and did a little dance, shaking his tail feathers and really putting on a show. Sadly, with all the people jumping in and taking photos, he did not seem to have much luck, but since there were many small children around, maybe that was for the best.
After that awesome display we walked through the rest of the park seeing emus, ostriches, eagles, hornbills, lorikeets, parrots, flamingos... you name it. 
Saturday, since Barb and Scott were not working, we headed about 90K out of the city to the elephant sanctuary where, if you are one of the first 100 people you can go for an elephant ride and bathe with the elephants. Luckily, it is an afternoon thing, so being in the first 100 was not too difficult. It was an incredible day and despite how crazy it could have been with the number of people that were there, it was really well organized and we got a lot of time with the elephants.
After an interesting movie about the relocation of elephants in Malaysia - the palm plantations have encroached on the elephants natural habitat and they move them from what is left of their small forests to the national nature preserve - we went and fed the elephants some fruit and peanuts. Then there was a short, but fun, elephant ride and then into the water on an elephant's back. He dumped us intot he watre and we bathed and played with three younger elephants. The elephants were amazing and wonderful and it was a great experience.
Monday we will leave the comfort of Barb and Scott's for the Cameron Highlands for some trekking and exploring... and hopefully some more fun animals!
The goodbyes and the "See you in Bali in April!" were said and we were off (with about 10 of our friends all flying Air Asia to Bangkok for the frisbee tourney. An excellent ease into leaving.)
Howie had a good, if not sweltering hot, tournament. He was camo, perhaps only a slightly less ugly colored shirt to carry with you for a long journey than neon green, and while his team did not do stellar, they had fun and won the most spirited team award. Howie played a lot, and well, and has some nice looking scrapes on his knees from some good laying out for the disc. I spent my days split between mornings out and about with our friends Dana and Gilles who were in Bangkok hanging out for the weekend and afternoons on the fields, cheering the many Jakarta players on. I, of course, ate well and had a lot of fun on the side lines.
After the tournament, we headed out to Sukothai, a stop on the way to Chiang Mai that has some ancient temple ruins. Sukothai is HOT. I mean really sweaty, hot. But that did not stop us. We arrived in the late afternoon and did some wandering, checking out the little local markets and enjoying local culture. While Sukothai has its tourists, it is still a small, quaint little town, with only a few backpacker hangouts. It is still weird for us to see so many foreigners around, and hear so many languages spoken.
Today we took some local transport into the Old City, rented some bikes and checked the ruins out. Good lord was it hot, but we persevered. The ruins are quite spread out, although no Angkor Wat in size, and there are nice roads leading you around from chedi to chedi and Buddha to Buddha. What is nice is that, despite the bus loads of people we saw entering the park, it was really peaceful, there were very few vendors (none of whom were pushy at all) and at times it felt like we had the place to ourselves. We were there from about 10 AM to 3 PM when we finally withered and were ruined-out (so to speak). Despite the heat, it was a really nice day. For anyone who plans this in the future, pack a lunch. It would have been a great place to cycle around and then plo down somewhere and have a nice bite to eat.
Finally, today we also had to say goodbye to our favorite slimy friend, Norman. The farm has moved to some new swanky digs and they were not opposed to taking Norman back again. It was very hard to part with the little guy, but he is definitely in good hands. And the new farm is looking great. They have partnered with some good people and seem to be steady on their feet, which is wonderful as it is a project we really like.
To celebrate Howie, Chad, Trish and I headed to Glodok, Jakarta's Chinatown, to check out what was going on. I have to admit that I was not expecting much. The last time Howie and I went almost 2 years ago we were significantly underwhelmed. Today was quite the opposite. It was great.
We also made a visit to a couple temples. There are quite a few tucked away throughout Glodok and then main one was really a sight to see. It was packed with both worshippers and beggars who we are told come from far and wide this time of year to receive the generosity of some guys who distribute about Rp. 3000 (about 30 cents) to anyone who is there. Supposedly they come every day for a week and just pass out the cash. We cannot really understand how this is lucrative enough to come from afar, but someone must have done the math (and realized that this is not the most orderly system of passing out money so you are able to collect more than once.) We decided not to stick around to see it all happen as the crowds were huge and it seemed like chaos was sure to ensue.
Inside the temple, the smoke from incense was intense and there are huge candles (we are talking 6 feet tall and 1 foot wide and bigger) all around. It was amazing to watch everyone lighting candles (small ones), incense and throwing their paper wishes into the fire. It was easy to forget where you were, and we were both quickly taken back to China and memories of celebrating there.
As you might remember from our last wedding, the process is basically put on your batik, head to the enormous hall (this particular one was near our old place and was holding 6 weddings on the same night, we are disappointed we had not crashed weddings there when we lived in the neighborhood), sign the book, drop your money filled envelope in the box, receive a weird and somewhat random gift (this time a lovely batik tissue box holder... eek), wait on line to shake hands and say congrats to the bride and groom, eat and leave.
There were well over 1,000 people at the wedding and poor Fifi and Dani spent the whole two hours shaking hands, her with an insanely heavy looking headdress on. We had fun eating whatever we could, it was a good spread, and hanging out with other work people.
