By Way of Asia

Bali, Indonesia: We’ve made good on our plan to do just about nothing here in Bali and have decided we’ll have to come back another time to actually see the sights. Soon we begin our journey back to the states - first stop LA. Here are a few last shots of Bali for the road…

Bali, Indonesia: After a quick flight from Singapore, we arrived in Nusa Dua, Bali - where we plan to spend our last week lounging by the beach, lounging by the pool, perhaps lounging in our room…basically doing a whole lot of nothing. The lets-do-lots-of-cool-things-and-see-everything-we-can-while-we-are-here side of us that’s been so well-trained over the past 10 weeks is a bit confused, but we have a feeling it will adjust just fine. And since Ash is platinum, we got upgraded to an executive suite which, it turns out, may actually be bigger than our apartment next year. The resort is beautiful and we get to spend a few of our days here with our dear friends Allie and Teddy, who have flown in from Tokyo to meet us. Who says you can’t use a vacation from your vacation?

Singapore, (uh), Singapore: We spent our last night in Bangkok paying way too much for drinks at Moon Bar - but boy was it worth it. Moon Bar is one of Bangkok’s two signature rooftop bars. Apparently Bangkok is one of the only cities that doesn’t mind putting open air, 360-degree-view rooftop bars on the 60th and 70th floor on some of its tallest skyscrapers. Probably not the safest thing in the world, but the views were pretty incredible and it was a wonderful way to say goodbye to Thailand.

The next day we arrived in Singapore to start the beginning of the final portion of our trip - we’ve officially said goodbye to backpacker digs and hello to cashing-in-our-starwood-points. First stop was the St. Regis in Singapore, where our room came with a private butler. While we did take in a few of the sights around Singapore, we spent the majority of our two days walking incredulously around our room and marveling at our shower - which was actually separate from the toilet and rest of the bathroom - and our flat screen TV…two things we haven’t seen in nearly three months.

We’re pretty sure our travel book “Southeast Asia on a Shoestring” has never made it’s way into a St. Regis before. And we’re pretty sure that the concierge has never been asked where their guests could find the public bus. Oh well. Guess there’s a first time for everything.

Bangkok, Thailand: Our next stop on the temple circuit was Wat Pho, which houses the famous Reclining Buddha. The Buddha is known for its size - coming in at a whopping 150 feet long and 50 feet high. Now that’s a big Buddha.

Bangkok, Thailand: Our second day in Bangkok happened to be a Saturday, which was very lucky (for Ash at least) because Saturday is the best day for the Chatuchak Weekend Market, one of the largest outdoor markets in the world and the largest in Asia. The market spreads out over more than 35 acres and contains an estimated 5,000 stalls. With that many stalls, you can buy almost anything (and we mean almost anything) - clothes, accessories, food, handicrafts, motorcycle parts, fine art, even baby bunnies and squirrels. A portion of the market is even dedicated to young Thai designers and artists, who decorate their small booths so they look more like miniature trendy boutiques than your typical market stall. Given that there was no way we could cover the entire market in a full day even with our early start, we resigned ourself to throwing aside the map and just wandering through the small alleyways wherever our feet happened to take us until - suffering from total shopping exhaustion - we gave up in the late afternoon. Unfortunately we have no good pictures to share, as we decided that any we took simply did not do justice to the enormity that is Chatuchak. But Ash has plenty of new shoes and dresses as proof.

On Sunday, we took in the sights as tourists should. First was the Grand Palace (which is sort of a confusing name because it houses not only the actual Grand Palace, but lots of other things too).

Luang Prabang, Laos: Greetings from Luang Prabang! Luang Prabang, the old capital of Laos, is an absolutely charming little town filled with sidewalk cafes, old cars, and beautiful colonial buildings. It’s our favorite city/town so far, and we’ve enjoyed it so much we’ve decided to stay longer than planned. One of the first things you might notice when coming to Luang Prabang is all the monks - we’ve heard there are in fact over 1,000 monks in the town and you can’t go outside without spotting them in their bright orange garb - sweeping the temple stairs, sitting under a tree, or even bartering in the night market. At dawn every morning, the monks rise and walk the town barefoot in single file talking “alms,” small donations of rice, money, or other gifts from the kneeling townspeople. According to anyone who has witnessed it, it is a must-see site. So, despite the obnoxiously early hour (e.g., 5:30am), we got our butts out of bed to see the procession for ourselves. Although we did see many monks pass by - and it was definitely beautiful to watch - we think we may have missed something because we only saw about 50 monks, not the 1,000 or so that we’ve been told participate. Oh well - perhaps we’ll try again tomorrow.

Hanoi, Vietnam: Hey everyone, this is Zach. We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming to bring you the story of a real adventure in Vietnam - getting a haircut.

Once you’ve been traveling for more than a few weeks, real life catches up to you a bit - you have to figure out how to handle all of the day-to-day things, like doing laundry, buying toiletries, updating your blog (ahem), or getting a haircut.

A buzz cut followed by six weeks of growth isn’t the most appealing style, and I haven’t been shaving too often either, so it was time to go get cleaned up. I left our hostel in Vietnam, turned left, and at the first street corner found what you might call a barber shop - except it was just a dude, a mirror, and a box of barber tools, stationed illegally between all of the parked motorbikes (apparently he’s only there in the morning, because in the afternoon the police would come after him).

70,000 dong (~$3.50) bought me a haircut and a shave - my first ever shave with a straight razor - from the world’s most meticulous barber. He literally shaved all the way up to my forehead (including shaving my earlobes - that was weird), and he even trimmed my nose hairs! How’s that for service?

In any case it turned out to be a pretty decent haircut so I gave him a 10,000 dong tip ($0.50), which he very much appreciated (apparently Americans are the only people in the world who tip). Ash even took a few pictures to commemorate the occasion.

Sapa, Vietnam:  Another wonderful thing about Sapa has been the ethnic minorities who live in the area and who are named after the varied and eccentric dress that they sport. For example, the Black H’mong - who boast the largest population in Sapa - get their name from their pretty cool black* clothing and headdresses, while the Red Dzay wear (kind of funny looking) santa-like red scarfs on top of their head. The tribes make their money from rice farming, selling fruits and vegetables, or making and selling charming hand-sewn goods such as hats, scarves, bags, and headbands. The one thing they all unfortunately have in common is absolutely terrible oral hygiene and there were times when we considered handing out the disposable toothbrushes we had in our bag from our hotel. We really enjoyed their company and, when they weren’t aggressively trying to sell us bracelets or pillowcases, we found them to be absolutely lovely people.

*The name is a bit of a misnomer since they clothes are technically dark indigo - made using the indigo plant that grows in the area. To demonstrate that the plant the guide pointed out on our trek was in fact indigo, Z took some leaves and spent a few minutes rubbing them around on his hands. They are still blue. That was three days ago.