don't swim in the water!

ah, so we left for lovely halong bay in the early morning, and hopped on a minibus with 10 other people--all about 20 years older than we were (this is what happens when you book a fancy tour!). i sat next to a canadian woman who was very nice, but a little odd...she told me that australia is now on the list of banned countries for the canadian gvt. ok, lady. there was an aussie couple in front of us who was very talkative (soo-prise!): dennis and alison, from sydney. there were some more aussies behind us, and behind us even further. we also met tang, our tour guide. tang means VICTORY! and it appears to be the most popular vietnamese name for boys born in about 1975. hmm...every time we meet a tang, they say, "my name is tang. it means VICTORY!" and then explain they were born in 1975, as if we hadn't already guessed.

the ride went quickly, and we stopped along the way at some shop and studio for disabled vietnamese kids. we met a lovely guy there with a club foot, who was working in the ceramics studio. he was so sweet ("i'm not going to get married. i am very ugly.") that i insisted we buy stuff from him. i am such a sucker, but he was a really lovely man. the place was very nice, but it felt a little like a zoo, with all the tourists standing over the handicapped kids on sewing machines, etc.

from there, we went to halong bay and hopped on a little boat to take us to the JUNK. on the little boat, we were joined by even more raucous australians, but we lost the canadians. i was a little worried we would be stuck with these new aussies the whole time, but it turned out they got on another boat. good. our boat, the jewel of the bay, was way out in the water, and we happily climbed aboard. already on board was one couple, anya and stefan, who were our age and...well, german (i'll leave it at that), and an, our "customer service manager" who lives on the boat and gets days off only when there are no tourists, which is about once a month.

the other people on our boat were dennis and alison, the germans, patricia and fiona, and minot (sp?) and mouse, his wife. minot and mouse are dutch-australians who live in melbourne, patricia and fiona live somewhere near sydney, and the germans were from hamburg. anya, the head german, is a travel writer! she spoke maybe 15 words to other people the entire time, and i think all the words were about her. or her beliefs. or what she says is right. anya was a party all the time. stefan spoke about 15 words the whole time, mostly because he looked terrified of anya.

the boat was lovely (3 floors, with the rooms below, the dining room on the first floor and the top deck) and our rooms were very nice. the food, however, was unbelievable! the thighs were very happy--all seafood, and about 7 (small) courses for every meal. we sailed around for a while, between all the giant island cliffs, in the beautiful turquoise water (don't worry, it gets worse). after a few hours, we went to see some caves, which were mediocre, and minot almost killed himself walking through and dennis (who is 6'8") had an interesting time. it was in the cave, however, that tim discovered his newfound love for dennis, who is a former geography teacher-tour operator-wildlife photographer-tech consultant. basically, dennis is a hilarious walking encyclopedia and i think tim might have left me for him had alison not been on board. alison is a travel agent-student-french translator, so they were most interesting people. we spent most of our time with them the first night, after a rather hilarious kayaking expedition.

tim decided not to kayak, but i went with the 4 aussies and the germans. let it be said that only 3 of us knew how to kayak. i will allow you to guess which three. ok, it was me, alison and dennis. the other 4 completely ignored an when he told them about the RUDDER on their kayak, and the aussie women spent the entire time careening around in the wrong direction, screaming at each other. the germans spent the entire time CRASHING INTO ME, and then pushing me into an's kayak. i would get no apology, but would hear an earful of anya yelling at stefan. ah, love. (the next day, stefan did not kayak. gee, i wonder why.) the trip ended with the aussie women yelling at an, who finally told them to use the rudder. they told him they didn't know about the rudder (although patricia claimed to be an accomplished kayaker and fiona is a SKIPPER, for god's sake, though it can also be said she hates the water. ???)

dinner went well (though anya and the aussie women got tanked and started saying things to each other like " YOU GERMANS...") and we all went to bed. tim and i sat very close to dennis and alison and dennis taught me some cool tricks, like how to eat the legs off fried shrimp. DELISH!

in the morning, everyone left but me and tim, and dennis and alison. i don't want to say thank goodness, but thank goodness! it would have been nice if minot and mouse had stayed, because they were quite sweet and interesting (married for 50 years!), but they all left. and then we got to party it up!

now, let it be said that the beautiful turquoise waters, though lovely, were not so clean. as we kayaked around, juice boxes and other charming remnants from the fishing villages would float past. (note to self: when you are keenly aware the water is not very clean, DO NOT SWIM IN IT!) after the first day kayaking, we anchored in a little cove and we all went swimming. in yet ANOTHER homicide attempt by my darling husband, i was forced to jump off the boat. i survived (for the short term) and we all swam around until my hands were so pruny they could hardly move. after we swam, i noticed that tim's bath towel was covered in brown sludge, like he had used it to mop the floor. of course, i assumed it was because he is simply filthy, but it was from the WATER! (note to self: when you know the water is so dirty it turns a pristine white towel brown, DO NOT SWIM IN IT!)

on the second day, there was more kayaking and more swimming. in his final halong bay homicide attempt, tim made me DIVE off the boat. of course, later that night...HELLO SWIMMER'S EAR! my theory is that all the diesel from all the boats was stuck in there, but tim refutes my brilliant claim. i took some advil before bed and thought i was fine in the morning.

I WAS WRONG. initially, yes, the swimmer's ear went away and tim and i went on our last kayaking trip with dennis and alison (where we went through a cave full of bats, and all i could think of was dennis' "bats can nick you and give you rabies and you never even know because it's just a tiny cut but a year later you're DEAD" stories) and then, as usual, the 4 of us sat around in our kayaks and gabbed for ages, much to poor tang's dismay. after the kayaking, i started to feel a little funny. my head really hurt and i started to feel a little seasick. let me say this: i am from maine. i do not get seasick. ever. we had some lunch, and i think i freaked dennis out a little bit, because he suddenly switched from hilarious entertainer mode to dad mode. we made it off the boat, and onto the van, where i promptly passed out. by the time we dropped dennis and alison off in haiphong, i think i had really scared the hell out of them, and i was pretty convinced my right eyeball was going to squirt out of my head. we left them with plans to meet up in melbourne (his daughter lives there) or sydney (tim invited us to stay with them) and i hope we see them again, because they were great!

by the time i got back to hanoi, i had recovered, and i felt even better when we got me some $1 codeine and some kind of nose squirty guy. ah, codeine of love. we took some and then i passed the frig out on the train to hue, which is good because it's a 13 1/2 hour journey. to me, it passed so quickly on the upper bunk of love!

the moral of the story? if your new husband suggests diving into some lovely-looking but clearly foul water, DO NOT DO IT because you will end up with diesel running through your sinuses for days to come! ha, and you were all worried about avian flu!

hmong girls rock my world

tim and i got to sapa via the hard sleeper train--6 people in a tiny cabin, each with a comfortable 1-inch mattress! we were in a cabin with an israeli, two swedes and an englishman named dan. dan HATES vietnam and had a lot to say on the subject. he thinks the vietnamese are all nasty thieves and are trying to screw the tourists every way but sideways. he hates the cyclo drivers and the motorbike drivers and he is sick of everyone harrassing him all the time. so of course, i started getting worried that i too would start to hate vietnam after a while (dan allowed that hanoi was the best place he'd seen yet in vietnam) and stayed up all night worrying about that and the fact that someone would break in and steal our bags from the tiny cabin, even though a nice train employee told us to tie them to the beds so that wouldn't happen (dan said the nice train man almost restored his faith in vietnamese).

we got to sapa and walked up the 173 stairs to our room, about 6 stories up on a hillside, checked out the view and then passed out. sweet sleeping action! then, of course, the first thing that happened was exactly what dan was talking about. THE HARD SELL. the place is full of roving bands of hmong and dao women, and it's a little intimidating at first. after recovering from our 574893578239 stairs and 2 minutes of sleep, we were wandering around town and a hmong woman came up to us with her baby strapped to her back. 'you buy from me?' we told her no and she kept following us--ALL OVER TOWN. at one point, her friend started to follow us as well and we were trying to outrun them and we couldn't stop laughing. the first woman caught up to us when we were cracking up and told us, laughing, 'you buy from me, no one will follow you!' finally, we cracked under the pressure and bought a bracelet from her, at which point her friend suddenly appeared and said to me, ' YOU BUY FROM HER, YOU BUY FROM ME!' it's like some kind of hmong mafia.

we spent the first day trying to avoid looking them in the eye, and then we sat at a bar on the main street with this awesome aussie, adrian, who knew them all. he had met a bunch of the young girls playing pool (!) in the bar downstairs the night before, and he met a bunch of the rest of them when they were hawking stuff. he was hilarious, telling them he had no money b/c he's already bought everything, and they kept teasing him and coming up to BITE him and everything. that was also when we learned their routine:
-'you buy bracelets from me!'
-'no, i have 2 bracelets already!'
-'you have 2, you need 4!'
that was when we decided to make friends with the hmong girls.

i made it my mission while i was there, and i am proud to say i achieved it. to be honest, it isn't too hard. buy something from them, or tease them about how you can't buy something from them, and they're yours forever. tim and i managed to befriend about 10-12 of the girls, who are the funniest, sassiest, smartest girls i've ever met (they're right up there w/aussie women in my estimation). they dress in the traditional black hmong clothes, but they speak perfect english and are surprisingly western. THEY EVEN RIDE MOTORBIKES! let me tell you, seeing hmong girls on motorbikes is a weird moment...they are all dressed up in their traditional clothes, whizzing past you. seeing the men is almost weirder, because the men wear their collars up (a la crusty), and for some reason, they look like something out of a weird sci-fi movie, like mad max. they're coming to take over the world, with collars up!

the first night, we went to the aforementioned pool bar and watched two girls (mimi and vu) play pool (they're all pool sharks) against this drunk aussie. it was hilarious. at one point, one of them looked at him and said, 'whatever.' and the other one later made a loser sign at him. we befriended 5 of them the first night, 4 more the second, and 2 the third. i bought something from about all of them (except for one, i think, loulou), but the stuff they sell is only about $1 so it's not that expensive. they are the sweetest little things, all huggy and kissy and wanting to hold hands and telling me that i'm beautiful and tim is a bad husband and looks older than me (though the second night in the bar, mimi was cracking up at the pictures i took of tim and telling him he looks 12 and then showing the camera to these israeli guys and telling them tim was my 12-year-old boyfriend). her friend lili caught on and kept running up to tim yelling 'YOU ARE ONLY 12 YEARS OLD!' and then falling all over him laughing. she would then bite him and run away. tim, of course, befriended the two real pool sharks, lili and vu, who quite literally looks like she could be a gang leader. they were so funny, but at first, they looked really tough and scary. once they started biting tim, though, it was all over. he is in love.

the third day we spent literally 4 hours in an internet cafe helping them email. they can all speak english, but only a few can write it and none can read it (tim says some actually can, but they are too lazy to do it). it was fun, but exhausting. two of the girls i helped had babies. ku, the younger one, has a baby named ga and another daughter, and i figure ku herself must be about 20 MAX. so, the other one, is 25 and has FOUR KIDS. she cracked me up when she looked at me and said, 'NO MORE!'

we've met some other cool people (3 aussies, 2 of whom i brokered a bracelet deal for with the girls and who coined the 12 year old expression) and the israeli guys, and one wretched nasty b@stard from spain who told mimi to f*ck off. let me tell you, i laid the smack down and tim even joined in!

we're pretty exhausted now, because in addition to kicking it with the hmong girls, we have been hiking/climbing stairs all over this frigger because sapa is a hill town and there are stairs EVERYWHERE. we hiked down and back to the nearest hmong village the first day and climbed the big hill in town the second. on our last day, we went on an unbelievably easy (yet stunning) hike to 2 more villages and then got a jeep ride back (praise jesus). our guide was another hmong girl named za, who was 17. she wore her hmong clothes, with sneakers, which is not an unusual sight because so many of these girls are also guides when they're not selling.

in her village, we ran into 4 little girls (8, 10 and 11) who we'd met our first day. they followed us from their village to the next one (an hour walk) and made me a crown of ferns and picked me flowers. one of them, la, also told me the following. 'i remember your husband, but not you. many people in my village are fat like you, but your husband, he not so fat.' man, she's lucky she is only 8 or i might have thrown her into the river! since she was the one giving me flowers, i let her live. at lunch in lao chai (the hmong village), there were some local boys who climbed up the wall of our deck-thing to watch us eat. we gave one of them an egg and another one some cheese, and we started a riot. two more boys came. we gave them two bananas and another egg. then the first ones came back and we gave them an orange. in the interim, they went over to the german tourists next to us and the lady tried to give one of them some cheese and she was almost crushed. they were pretty damn cute, though. according to the girls, little boys in the village do nothing but play and sometimes watch buffalo, but the girls start selling when they are only about 6 or 7 (and from what i've seen, sometimes younger than that). TYPICAL LAZY MALES!

yesterday, when we left, we went into town to say goodbye to them all and we had some major melodrama. we were surrounded by about 10 girls and we told them we had to get the bus, but as we were leaving, one of them started to cry. she wouldn't look at us or tell us why she was crying. it was either because she was mad at tim because he couldn't open her email the day before, or she thought we ignored her that morning (which we hadn't, we had said hello and gotten no response) or because we never bought anything from loulou (loulou's translation, mind you). she walked with us almost back to the hotel, and then we said goodbye. i still have no idea why she was crying. BUT, when we got back to the hotel, all those other girls had come to say goodbye! HOORAY! and when i asked them about zeng, they told me she cries all the time, so that made me feel a little better. we took some pictures, exchanged the few remaining email addresses and went on our way. man, am i going to miss hmong girls. for four days, i got to be a hmong goddess, and now i'm back to being just a fat tourist!

sapa itself was amazing. the views are glorious, as my mom would say, and it's kind of like being in the alps. but not (because you're in vietnam, duh). our hotel room had the most stunning view, and it's a cute little town. but, they are building EVERYWHERE and soon it will be completely overcome with tourists. tim is worried about what will happen to the girls, and it will be interesting to see. when we met the aussies in borneo, they had been to sapa about 5-10 years ago and i think even since then it's changed completely. when they were there, they hmong girls only knew how to say 'bonbon' when they asked for candy, and now, check them out!

we're staying in hanoi tonight...we got the soft sleeper back last night (only 4 bunks and a 3-inch mattress--yay!) and roomed with an irishman who lives in hanoi and teaches english, and two tiny vietnamese girls who both slept in one tiny bunk. tomorrow we head out to halong bay for some kayaking action, so we won't be back online until the 22nd. stay tuned and try not to miss us too much!

hanoi has...

...thousands of people all riding around the city on bikes, from kids on bicycles coming home from school, to old men on motorbikes, to entire families (4 people) riding around together
...so many motorbikes that they are all parked on the sidewalk and you have to walk in the street to get by, because the sidewalk looks like a moped shop
...cyclo and motorbike drivers on every corner, calling out to give you a ride
...beautiful women in conical hats, carrying baskets held by wood over their shoulders, selling bananas and pineapples and donuts and all kinds of things, and looking as though they are bouncing on their toes to walk
... kids on bicycles with so many baskets attached to the bike, there's barely room for the kid
...people on motorbikes with 15 boxes stacked on the seat, unattached, so that they are held on only by the good balance of the driver
...people sitting on the streets on tiny red seats, eating noodles and pho and all kinds of other foods, or just drinking the anemic-looking beer at lunchtime
...westerners wandering around like goons all over the place, clutching the lonely planet vietnam like it's their bible
...a park with a giant lake in the middle, surrounded by drooping trees, with men and women and children all sitting on benches, or drinking coffee or playing chess
...kids in white shirts and little red ties who wave to you and cry out 'hello!' when you pass
...little boys in the temple of literature gardens who run past and shoot you a peace sign
...scrawny women with postcards across the street from the sofitel metropole, not begging exactly, but trying to sell something, and sprinting up to you to do it
...wide parisian style bouldevards, lined with colonial buildings with green shutters and leafy trees
...tourist shops where the salesman will play you spanish songs on his guitar for ages, telling you the whole time that he has played only for a year, and smiling despite the fact that you're driving him crazy with your 900 pictures to burn to cd
...salespeople in shops who run up to you when they hear you're english to talk about football
...night cafes that as though they could easily be paris, or rome, or different era entirely
...aggressive women in travel shops who tell you about their services and when you say you will come back, ask 'you won't buy anything from me today?' and when you do come back, they insist you pay them in dollars
...people on the street who want to sell you something, and even when you say no, when you smile, they light up and give you the world's biggest grin
...girls in the hoan kiem lake park, sitting with their boyfriend, who call out hello and wave like children when you walk past and smile
...evening that starts at about 5.30, when the light goes all wintry and the windows fill up with yellow light and it feels like christmas even though it's 80 degrees outside

good morning vietnam

we finally got into hanoi after altogether too many hours in hong kong, where the people were TOO PUSHY. a woman actually tried to WALK INTO THE STALL in the bathroom when i was trying to exit. man, i hate people. lady, do you really think you're going to pee THROUGH me? jeez.

we got here, went through customs (no questions asked, again!) and got a taxi into hanoi which might have been one of the more memorable experiences of my life. driving in vietnam (or, at least driving here) requires a certain amount of skill, bravery and sheer insanity. our driver would switch lanes with no notice, dodging motorbikes and other cars, and using the preferred mode of passing, which is to creep right up behind the person in front of you and then flash your lights, and if he doesn't move in 2.3 seconds, start honking madly. hanoi driving makes boston driving look like a piece of cake, and it makes sibyl and dewey look like mere amateurs in the world of road intimidation. there are motorbikes everywhere here, and i mean EVERYWHERE. bikes with parents holding onto kids with one hand, bikes with young girls wearing face masks, bikes with parents with kids holding onto their siblings as their little legs hang off the side of the bike. and while it is impossible to describe (and perhaps even to contemplate, unless you've seen it), it is absolutely manic. at intersections, the bikes all line up as if they're in a race, and then BAM! they're off, honking and weaving around cars and other motorbikes, and cyclos and pedestrians. honking and honking and HONKING.

crossing the street is another unusual experience. the first day we were here, i told tim we would just walk on the same side of the road the whole time, but he made me cross the street (he is so mean!). crossing the street usually entails waiting for a break in the traffic (which usually means the flow slows to only 4-5 bikes) and then sprinting for your life. of course, now, we're master experts at the art of hanoi road crossing, and we casually stroll across, hoping they will dodge us (which they usually do, but we just saw a woman get hit by a motorbike). of course, the best is when tim starts to cross the road, and i follow him, looking for traffic on the other side, and then i get halfway across and realize he's back on the curb and i am staring down 4798398287549874353827 bikes. another attempt on my life? i think maybe so!

this city, though exhausting, is wonderful. the first day i told tim i didn't think i could ever live here, but now, after a few days, i'm not so sure. once you get used to the pace of life and the incessant honking, it all starts to look different. the first day here we were wildly ambitious and we did a walking tour of the city (guided by our lonely planet book, carried through hanoi by literally every tourist in town). the walking tour took us through a maze of streets in the old quarter and was a little overwhelming. we had lunch at cha ca la vang ( i think that's right), a little restaurant that specializes in a fish dish. sure enough, when we walked upstairs in the restaurant, the waitress gave us a note that said "this restaurant only serves one dish: fish cakes for 70,000 dong". we think the tourists pay more ($4.50) for the cakes, but whatever. she brought over a bowl of noodles, a bowl of herbs, a bowl of greens, a bowl of chilies in oil and a bowl of peanuts. we sat and stared at it all for a minute, wondering what to do, until she brought over a clay oven with a pan on top with sizzling fish cakes. she dumped some of the greens in, stirred it around, and left us. it was delicious. of course, while we were eating, we noticed the restaurant's cat jumping up on the counter and eying the greens suspicipiously, but at this point, as long as a roach didn't jump out of the greens, i was happy.

the second day, we spent a bunch of the day jerking around (i noticed that my idiot pharmacy only gave me 30 days of malaria pills instead of 110--THANKS, HIP!!) and running around the hotel, and then we took a cyclo to the temple of literature. the cyclo drivers are all over the city, along with the motorbike drivers, calling out 'sir, madame?' and pointing to their bikes. they are usually just lounging around languidly, and they take the news that you're not interested pretty well. $1 each got us across town to the temple, in one of the more bizarre travel experiences of my life. the cyclo driver sits behind you and cycles you around town, and you, like the motorbikes, weave in and out of traffic, around buses and cars, and you wait at the stop lights along with the rest of the crowds. it's a little intimidating at first, but soon you get over your fear of dying in an accident and start to worry about death by asphyxiation. since you're right in the thick of the traffic, you are right in the thick of the fumes from 74897897598237589375 other vehicles. i spent about a quarter of the ride covering my mouth and trying not to breathe. the rest of the time i spent feeling my white girl guilt about making this nice man cart my giant thighs across town for $1. the driver was sweet and when i told him i was american, pointed proudly to the hanoi hilton (the prison, not the hotel), and pointed out several other landmarks along the way..."train station!" "school!" "pagoda!" "lottery!" all the while trying to get me to book him for the whole day. i told him to ask the boss, and he thought that was hilarious. the boss, of course, said no, which was great because it meant i didn't have to!

at the temple, while tim was paying the drivers, a postcard seller popped out of nowhere and greeted me with 'you're beautiful. want to buy postcards?' man, how can you argue with that? of course i made tim buy them, although he made a point to add that the kid was probably not going to school, as he said, but just selling postcards. killjoy. the temple of literature is beautiful and is a very tranquil place in this crazy city, and we encountered another kid who gave me the same greeting: "you're beautiful. you fill out my survey?" of course i did, and then it turned out he was also raising money for the blind (we gave him $3). damn, my immense beauty is sure costing tim a lot of money!!

after the temple, we went over to the hanoi hilton (i keep forgetting the real name. hua lua prison?), which was a profoundly troubling experience for me. i have been to old prisons before (dublin and alcatraz), and i am not usually disturbed by it. then again, most prisons have not have extensive displays about the torture the prisoners endured. as tim said, the prison is a heroes' prison, where vietnam's revolutionaries suffered at the hands of the evil, wicked french. i won't go into it, but there was a room for the prisoners sentenced to death, and walking through, i got the creepiest feeling i've ever had, and quite literally felt sick. again, as an american, you don't think much about what the vietnamese endured to become communist (apart from all the fighting they did against the americans and the french and so on). there was a section for the enemy prisoners, in which there was much propoganda about how well american prisoners were treated (they got to exercise! they got delicious meals! they got to write to their families!) and then all kinds of info about john mccain and "pete" peterson, who are the prison's most famous american inmates. the whole place was very depressing (duh, allie, it's a prison) and the worst part is that they tore down 2/3 of the prison to build AN APARTMENT BUILDING. now, i don't know about you, but would you want to live on the site where hundreds of people were tortured or killed? not so much.

that night, we walked through the shopping district (silks! bags! jewels! hooray!) and then found a cafe called little hanoi where we stopped for a drink. then we went to the water puppet theater to buy tickets, and then we went back to little hanoi for dinner--nice french baguette sandwiches. the water puppet show was great--totally touristy, but worth it, i think. the music was wonderful (live musicians play and sing and talk during the show) and the puppetry was amazing.

yesterday, we went to the perfume pagoda. somewhere between the hotel and the pagoda, tim lost his red sox hat! sadness. this of course meant he had to buy a rad straw vietnamese-style hat at the jetty. also at the jetty, there were two tiny children, a little girl (about a year old) and a little boy (about 3). their mother had a little stand where she sold some kind of concoction that involved greens and noodles (it could be anything--lots of food uses those ingredients). so there i was, checking out the kids (sorry, chad) and laughing at the little girl playing with the greens. then she eats the greens. then she drops the greens on the floor and runs off with her brother. then her father picks the greens up off the floor and puts them back in the basket. YUM! (and tim wonders why i made him buy so much hand sanitizer--as if that will save us!)

on the way to the boat, a local woman came up and put a conical hat on my head and then jumped back. 'you buy! you buy! very cheap!' i gave it back to her and kept walking. bam! back on the head. this happened about 4 or 5 times before she got the hint and stopped. persistence will get you everywhere in life, but it will not get me a straw hat. then we got to the jetty and a little boy with the most amazing eyelashes comes up to us with some hats. we said no, he walked away. but then tim started to think about it. it's hot in vietnam, and we would be outside for 6 hours. did he really want to fry like a chicken? so he calls the little boy over, and eyelash kid sells him a hat for $1. it is a fine looking hat, but i miss the sox hat, i'll tell you what.

the ride up the river took forever. ok, only an hour, but sitting on a piece of wood for an hour ain't too comfortable. but oh, how i longed to be sitting on the wood when we got off the boat. we had a 3K (2 mile) walk UPHILL, as in UP A MOUNTAIN to get to the pagoda. let me tell you it was not fun. it took 45 mins to get up and about the same to come down. our guide was on fire to get us to the top, and it was hotter than hell. not only was it hot, but it was sunny AND humid. i will tell you: i barely survived. the pagoda was blissfully cool and interesting when we finally got there (though worth the hike? i am not sure). every year, thousands of vietnamese go to the pagoda to pray. it had all different natural altars, like if you want a son, or a daughter, or lots of money. on the way down, we ran into the woman from the jetty who had told me to buy stuff from her. her approach was to come up next to me and say 'where are you from? what's your name? AT THE TOP, YOU BUY FROM ME??' i said yes, not quite knowing what i was getting into, and so, after i had already gone through 3 bottles of water en route to the pagoda, we bought another from her on the way down. the little trickster tried to sell it to us for 3x the going rate for water, and then when we said no, she told us she had to carry it up and it was very hard (all true). so we only paid twice as much. i'm a sucker, i know. the best part about the pagoda was the dogs. it was the first time in asia we've seen healthy, western-style dogs (in hanoi, it's all yappy chihuahas and in indonesia, they were the furless creatures, and in malaysia, they were bizarrely small). at the pagoda, they had big, beautiful german shepherds, and a bunch of tiny puppies. but tim wouldn't let me touch them. rabies, you know. KILLJOY!

last night we went to a restaurant across the street (after 4 hours on the bus, 2 on the river and 2 hiking, we were too tired to walk any further). it was called diva and it was beautiful. i had bun cha (pronounced boon chow, if you're interested--it is officially the only vietnamese word i can correctly pronounce, and i spent a lot of time practicing. bun cha!) and tim had some kind of claypot eggplant/pork dish. it was so good, and the restaurant was lovely. we sat outside, next to the pianist/violinist duo who played all kinds of music, and soaked it all up. after a while, you can start to understand why they call it the paris of asia. there were all kinds of tables of people, and the lights were dim, and the music was great and it was just FABULOUS. also, i had the best milkshake i have ever had in my life. hands down. no question. and it wasn't even chocolate.

today we've just been wandering around aimlessly, since we're officially homeless, having checked out of our hotel. the other day, we stopped at a travel agency to burn a cd, and the guy there played us guitar music for about an hour while he burned the cd. i think tim is officially in love with him, so we went back today to get a return ticket from sapa and a ticket to hue. while we were there, he was entertaining an israeli father and son, and we all sat in the office while he played the guitar and talked to us--in english and hebrew. this morning, we walked south of the old quarter (which is where i think i want to live) and had camembert sandwiches and orangina at a little cafe called hanoi gourmet. again, perfect. the street cafes look interesting, but they don't speak english and there are chickens running amok in lots of them. I HATE CHICKENS. they gross me out to no end, and with the avian flu, i ain't taking any chances. ew, chickens.

so tonight we are taking an overnight train to sapa, and then we will be there until the 18th when we get an overnight train back, and then we spend another night here and then we kick it in halong bay. more from sapa!

so-so singapore

so we got to singapore on friday afternoon, after a blissful journey on the NICE bus (they aren't kidding about the name!). the bus took exactly 5 hours (almost to the minute) and we were seated in sprawling leather seats, with delicious green/peach tea and chicken satay sandwiches, watching GI Jane. it was great. at the singapore customs, our customs agent appeared to be a tranny, as he was wearing mascara, blush and had very long nails. YAY! he was the nicest one yet, and let me into singapore for 90 days, but tim could only stay for 14. HA HA. transvestites LOVE me!

however, i don't think we would have even wanted to stay for 14, because singapore is no KL. first of all, there was no one to buy us dinner every night and take us to the cool local places. boo. second of all, our hotel was no ritz. we were upgraded to a suite, but it was still only ok. (man, am i a brat or what?) third of all, the FRIGGING RED SOX BLEW IT in singapore. fourth of all, THE YANKEES FORCED A FIFTH GAME in singapore. fifth of all, i kept smacking my head and hands on things and it was not very fun.

the city itself is terrifically beautiful, and perfectly manicured. there are lovely flowers everywhere and no trash anywhere. the girls in KL told us, cracking up as they said it, that singapore is a 'fine' city, because people are fined for everything. i can believe it. no city is that clean under normal circumstances.

we stayed on orchard road, which is perhaps the biggest shopping street i have ever seen with massive huge malls up and down the road. i have never seen that many people do that much shopping in my life. no joke, throngs of people everywhere. all the time. it was scary. and, no one bought me anything, so it was just bad.

we mostly used our time there to recover from our terrible victimization in borneo and to seek psychological attention for our trust issues. ok, no. we slept a lot. on friday night, when i was v grumpy about our hotel not being the ritz, we walked down orchard rd to get some sushi. the place we chose had a giant cartoon of a grumpy face--how perfect!! (i also bought a mug, for posterity's sake, of grumpy sushi house). the sushi came on a conveyor belt, and while not quite as good as the place james and jeff took us to in SF, it did have some weird-looking sushi, for which i created new names. two of the new names were "things your dog would cough up if he had worms" and: "cup o' vomit". TASTEEEE! on saturday, we walked to raffles and then went to the asian civilisations museum (a tremendous museum, which i highly recommend) and then got the v efficient and immaculate MRT home. for dinner, we went to little india to a restaurant called the banana leaf apolo. it was maybe the best meal yet. joy, thank you for introducing us to banana leaf love! we had all kinds of veggie curry and rice and poppadoms, and at the end of the meal, tim was ready to jump into his plate of spinach potatoes and i had virtually drunk the raita. mmm, delish.

on sunday, we slept. and we went to dubliner's, a pub around the corner for lunch. it was good, but spendy. then i made tim walk around for 100 years looking for t-shirts. i found only one. then we posted the blog, and went home, meaning to motivate and go to the night safari at the zoo, but guess what? we're lazy. but you already knew that. so instead we went down to the food court and then went to bed. again. the hotel was only ok, but the bed was wicked comfy. hooray!

we got up this morning at 5 to fly to hanoi, where i write to you now. more on that tomorrow.

longhouse of love

after a few days in kuching, we booked a trip to spend the night in an iban longhouse, in the middle of the rain forest. we were a little nervous about it, but figured it would be one of those memorable experiences that make a trip worthwhile. so we went.

rosli, our guide, showed up at 9am with a van with very bad suspension. he was nice enough, but was not very talkative, and i couldn't understand a word he said, partly because i was sitting right behind him, and partly because he had a marblemouth. we stopped twice on the 5 hour trip--once in serian, to pick up some food for dinner (tim and i just wandered around) and once at some rest stop to get lunch, which was unremarkable except for the wild ferns we ate, which were delish! we bought some cookies in serian, b/c the tour office had told us to bring them for the kids, but rosli said no, so we bought some notebooks and pencils at the rest stop.

i fell asleep soon after lunch, but woke up pretty close to the river, when we stopped to pick up some locals. we drove them down the road to what looked like a bus stop, and then dropped them off. they were very nice, but i had no idea what was going on at the time. it appears this is how the iban people get around--not quite hitchhiking, but not traveling under their own steam either.

we drove down to the river and when we got outside, it was about a billion degrees, and since it was rain forest, i shall let you imagine the humidity on your own. tim and i hauled our billion-pound bags down to the river, where a loooooong blue wooden boat awaited us. our 'driver' was a 15-year old boy who weighed about 100 pounds--of sheer muscle--and was covered with tattoos. his mother sat at the front of the boat, where she pushed us occasionally with a long stick, and mocked her son. we only hit the bank once during the whole trip, which i thought was pretty impressive. the kid maneuvered us through little rapids, giant sticks, rotting trunks, through a long brown river. it was only when i checked my watch to see what time it was that it occurred to me. watch. attached to an arm. found inside a crocodile. at the kuching museum. CROCODILES! ACK! i kept my hands inside the boat for the rest of the trip, as if that would help.

we got to the longhouse after about 45 minutes of feeling like some kind of crocodile dundee in malaysia. there were about 15 little boys playing in the water outside the house, and our guesthouse was at the top of a hill overlooking the river. we had a kitchen attached to the house, and toilets, and a nice little porch overlooking the whole scene. we stood, watching the kids swim and waiting for rosli to find us a room, when the australians arrived. three of them, named bly, vicki and sarah gregory, from adelaide. now, i don't know about you, but when i am on vacation and new people arrive, i immediately feel better if they are aussie. and so it was here. they were all very friendly--vicki is a schoolteacher, and sarah is their daughter, studying to be a teacher as well.

we all watched tim playing soccer with the kids (in his jeans, no less!) when one of the local elders appeared, wearing what i can only describe as a diaper (joy, i know it isn't REALLY a diaper, but i don't know the real word). he came over and shook hands with me, sarah and vicki (who had just gone swimming) and when he said hello to me, he slapped me on the bum and cracked up. he then did the same to the other two girls. vicki said he must have thought we were grade A meat, and sarah said if anyone ever did that to her in a pub, she would punch them.

after the soccer ended, we had a cockfight demonstration with our boat driver and another young guy, which consisted mostly of the cocks trying to fight and the kids cracking up. then, we got to the blowpipe demonstration, which was my favorite part. the blowpipe is exactly what it sounds like--a long pipe with an arrow inside, which you blow on to shoot the arrow. let me tell you this, people. i am a blowpipe MASTER. if they ever make blowpiping an olympic sport (which i am going to recommend immediately), you are looking at the gold right here.

after the blowpiping, tim and i went for a swim (rather, tim went for a swim and when he came out, i was about to pass out, so i made him swim again with me to save me from crocs). while we were swimming, kids were sitting under the gutter pipe, showering in the rain, and there was just a whole lot of commotion.

we then dried off and had a most delicious dinner (of more food than the 5 of us could ever eat, even though we all tried and had seconds), with delicious eggplant, and some WILD FERN OF LOVE, and some chicken with chili. yummmmm.

after dinner, rosli came to tell us it was time to go to the longhouse. 'bring your cash with you,' he said. we thought it was weird of him to tell us then, but since we were leaving our stuff behind, we grabbed our wallets and went, thinking, AS IF anyone would steal from us out in the wilds of borneo!

the longhouse is exactly what it sounds like: a long house. the main room stretched along the entire length of the house, and the rest is divided into small rooms for each family, which is then subdivided into smaller cubes for each person. the main room, the living room, is basically empty but for straw mats for entertaining, and HUMAN SKULLS that hang from various points in the ceiling. the iban were headhunters until pretty recently, you see, and the skulls, a status symbol, are meant to protect them. apparently, the iban banded together with the malays or chinese, and the malays and chinese would take the gold, and the iban pirates would take the heads. rad!

when we got to the house, we all sat on the floor with some of the elders (including pervy diaper-elder)and one of them brought out the rice wine. rice-wine elder came through to meet us, with a different greeting for each of us. tim and bly got 'hello, sir,' vicki got 'hello, lady' and sarah and i got 'hello, baby!' we each got about a shot's worth and were told to drink it all at once, and then throw the glass on the floor. sarah and i were a little apprehensive, but it wasn't too bad. then he brought out the rice whisky, which smelled like petrol and tasted about the same (i am speculating here, OBVIOUSLY i have never tasted petrol). of course, the whiskey (65%, according to a guide) had a lot more in the glass. sarah couldn't drink hers (i gave mine to tim) so drunk elder took it and drank it, and then gave her a giant glass of rice wine. he then proceeded to proposition her repeatedly and make toasts to her, yelling 'kiss!' she would yell back, 'cheers!' vicki and i told her that she could be his sixth wife, and that bly would only demand two heads in exchange for her.

after the drinking, there was dancing. we had about 5 or 6 local dance demonstrations, with beautiful colorful clothes and almost xylophone music. it was all very beautiful, and at the time, i thought the whole experience was one of the best nights i had ever had. after the individual dancing ended, we were all invited up, and all of us danced around in a circle together, laughing and waving our arms around like freaks. and then...

we were robbed by headhunters

so, after the beautiful dancing, we literally turned around and there were about 30 people sitting on the floor, with little stands full of homemade goods for us to buy. tim whispered to me that he only had $100 ringgit, and that we'd have to get something cheap with his remaining money. so he opened his money, and all that was there was 12 ringgit!

we went to sarah and told her, and she was very sweet and sympathetic. we figured there was nothing we could do and started down to the other end of the room to see what we could buy with $4, and turned around and sarah was in tears, with her parents. someone had taken $500 AUS from her wallet as well! tim then checked our envelope of US $ and sure enough, there were some $20s missing. WE WERE ROBBED BY HEAD HUNTERS!

the gregorys called their guide, who had conveniently disappeared right before the shopping center opened, and he was good and pissed. we all stood there like idiots, checking our bags and wallets for about 15 minutes, with all these poor people sitting there wondering why we weren't buying their bracelets. the guides repeatedly told us this had never happened before, which didn't make much sense, since rosli told us to TAKE OUR CASH to the longhouse, not our valuables. finally, we went back to the guesthouse, where we debated for hours about who could have done it.

the theories were:
1. the little girls who were playing outside our rooms
2. the cockfighting kids, one of whom disappeared after the cockfight
3. someone from outside the longhouse community
4. the gregorys' driver, who didn't speak a word to them the entire time, had been hanging out in his room all night, who had left his bag in their room to begin with, and who was WEARING SHORTS WITH A YANKEES INSIGNIA ON THEM

now, i think we all know who did it. it was CLEARLY the yankees fan. more proof came when he suggested that all the guides do a 'spot check' and empty out their bags to prove they didn't have the money. clever, but we're onto you, pal! he clearly had stuffed our money into his yankees underwear, and then emptied his bag just to make himself look innocent. tim thinks i'm being paranoid...DO YOU? (i know crust will agree with me, having been viciously thieved from by a yankee fan--how's that for syntax?)

of course, it dawned on me about midnight, as we were lying in our room, on our mat, with our mossie net over us that we were staying with HEADHUNTERS. this thought was precipitated by bly, who kept talking about the repurcussions in the morning. so, i of course spent most of the night lying in bed, expecting a blowpipe dart to the head at any moment, followed by a saw to the neck. as you can see, it didn't happen! (feel free to praise god at any time for my untouched neck, marred only by prickly heat rash.) of course, it was nearly impossible to sleep anyway, with 3 guides snoring it up in the next room, roosters crowing like maniacs, dogs having some kind of bark convention, and then feral cats having a rumble under the house.

the gregorys left v early in the morning, and we woke up at about 7. we had breakfast and then the owner of the guesthouse came down and told us some rubbish about how in 2000, one of the locals had been arrested for stealing from tourists but went to prison and was not allowed back. so much for 'it's never happened before!'

when it was time to go, our boat driver (one of the cockfight boys) appeared, but would not make eye contact (maybe bly's theory was right--maybe they did steal the money!). he drove us back to the van, and since it had rained all night, the river was very high, so it took only 30 mins.

the ride back was fairly uneventful, apart from the fact that rosli kept falling asleep. tim fell asleep as soon as we got in the van, but i stayed up to keep an eye on rosli, who kept shaking his head to keep awake, yet still roaming over to the center of the road and the other lane! finally we hit a bump big enough to wake tim, and tim talked to him for a long time about hydroelectricity to keep him awake.

we got to the airport 4 hours before our flight, so we got bumped up to an earlier one, and we ran into the gregorys in the airport. they gave us the new goss from their guide, which was that rosli's girlfriend had stolen from the iban themselves, and was forbidden from coming to the longhouse ever again! bly figured that the kids had climbed across the rafters to get out, and that it was the cockfight kids. also, they rold us that their guide was unlicensed, and that the 2000 robber actually only went to jail last year, so it could have been him. WE WILL NEVER KNOW and it will make me crazy forever!

kuching kids r kute

so i have three stories to illustrate the extreme adorability (is that even a word? i think not) of malaysian children. kids in KL are also cute, i'm sure, but we have had some very sweet experiences with the kids here.

#1: at the KL airport, we were in the waiting room, sitting next to the glass wall next to the people mover. a little boy (about 6, i'd say) came over and just started smiling this big toothy grin at me through the window. then he gets on the people mover and starts walking forward, next to me, as the thing is moving backward. eventually his family came in to the room, and they all sat near us, grinning madly, until the father took the youngest son and pushed him toward us. the little boy fell back on dad, and they repeated it over and over. on the plane, toothy grin boy kept turning around and smiling at me, the whole time. cute!

#2. today, at the islamic museum, right before tim and i went in, a huge school group came busting through. the kids were all between about 8-12, and they were cra-zee. they came flying into the room and literally went crashing against the walls. about half of the girls had head scarves, which i would imagine would make them more reserved and quiet. um, no. (preconceptions about islam have been thrown out the window on this trip, but that's for the next blog.) the boys were completely insane, and just went crashing all over, bumping into things and laughing riotously. about half the kids seemed terrified of us, and the other half would say hello shyly, and then giggle like fiends. they were VERY cute, but miss bachrach would be horrified if her kids acted like that. tim found it quite refreshing to see that kids everywhere are the same, however. on our way out, we passed them sitting outside in the park, eating lunch. a bunch of girls called out to us, and then cracked up. i'm telling you, these kids are seriously adorable.

#3. GET READY FOR GREATNESS. yesterday, at the kuching airport, tim and i were waiting behind 3 women, a baby and a little boy (about 3 or 4 yrs old) to go through customs. the little boy was hanging like a monkey off the metal handrail, and we smiled at him. he stopped what he was doing and looked at us suspiciously. we kept smiling (like fools, i suspect) and suddenly, he roared like a lion. the women he was with all jumped, but we just smiled some more. i would guess that it was at this point he decided we were okay, and he went over to the baby carriage, pointing inside and repeating 'adam'. his mother smiled at us and told us he had a baby brother adam, and she turned the carriage so we could see him. once we saw the baby, the little boy came over, quite seriously, and put out his hand. i put out my hand, thinking he was going to shake hands, and instead, he KISSED IT! it was, without question, the cutest friggin thing i have ever seen in my entire life. he then went on to tim, and, just as seriously, shook his hand. at this point, the women he was with were cracking up, but i was about ready to knock them over and take him home. HOW CUTE?!

close encounter with tim's kind

so today we got up and went into town to see the sarawak museum. it was approx. 789 degrees in the sun, so by the time we got into the museum, we were quite literally wanting to make out with the A/C. the museum was great, with all kinds of cool stuff like a watch and a giant hairball with human teeth that were removed from a croc that was blown out of the water by hand grenades, and a replica of an ibah longhouse with about 30 human skulls hanging from the ceiling. rad. (we're going to stay in a longhouse tomorrow, but tim thinks that they prob won't have human skulls there b/c they are not head hunters anymore, but i should be worried if they start fondling the mullet.)

from there, we went to the post office to catch the AWESOME 1960's green and cream school bus lacking any kind of A/C whatsoever to the orangutan sanctuary. before we got the bus, we picked up some water and some cheezy-weezies (twisties, or cheetos to those of you unfortunately unrelated to me).we got on the bus and ate about half of them on the 45 min journey.

at the sanctuary, we had a LONG walk in the HOT sun to get to the monkeys, but when we got there, we were happy to be in the shade. we walked down to cage 1, which had a depressed looking croc in a depressed-looking cage. depressed, we turned around to walk to cage 2, when who should lumber around the corner but MAMA MONKEY with her baby girl. let me tell you: orangutans ain't small. this one was about as tall as i am (she had bad posture, just like me) and she was scary, up close and personal. tim said for us to get off the walkway and pretend not to see her (as if that was possible), so we did, but she wasn't to be deterred. she grabbed tim's plastic bag of cheezy-weezies and tried to take it. he resisted briefly until i wailed, TIM, GIVE HER THE BAG (as i cowered under a bush), so he did. she opened the bag, took out the empty mentos box, threw it away, tossed the water bottles, and then took out the delicious cheezy-weezies. she grabbed the baby, and climbed the first tree she could.

of course, a ranger immediately came out and gave us the stinkeye. dude, how were we supposed to know orangutans were going to be running around out in the open?! the german couple from our bus started taking pictures, and then were told to get away from her because she could get aggressive at any moment (these friggers clearly hadn't been to the ubud forest of doom). all standing at a distance, we told the germans about our encounter, and the wife said, 'i thought it was funny she was eating chips!'

tim of course was very distressed that he had fed such bad junk food to what could be his twin sister--and his niece, but i think mama monkey was ok with it. soon after, her son came swinging over, and eventually, the rangers gave us bananas, sweet potatoes and papayas to feed them (but no cheezy-weezies). tim has a great old video of me trying to toss the food to the son, to no avail. note to self: papayas are hard to throw--and catch! there was a polish duo on our bus too, who was sitting around eating fruit, and it took no time at all for mama to come over and demand their watermelon. monkeys are FUNNY.

i got a malaysian mullet

so i forgot to mention the most important news of the trip: i now have a malaysian mullet. yes, the other day tim and i were laughing about the mullet's popularity here, and talking about my imminent haircut. wouldn't it be funny if i got a mullet? ha ha ha. NO. it is NOT funny.

so you would think that if you got your hair cut at the FREAKING RITZ, you would be safe from trailer trash hair, yes? apparently, the answer is no. i met gilbert, my lovely hairdresser, and trusted him to keep my hair attractive, but to cut it shorter because it was just too long and heavy, and it's hot here. 20 minutes later, he's ankle-deep in my hair and I HAVE A MULLET! o gilbert, WHYYYY?

tim and joy claim it is attractive, but they are both very bad liars. at best, i look 30 years older than i am, and at worst, i am kid rock's twin sister. i am attaching a photo of me (at some point) with my old, pretty hair so you can remember me that way, instead of being mullethead.

and now it's time to vote: should we call the honeymoon the mulletmoon, or the honeymullet? you decide!

the KL 3

tim and i arrived in kuala lumpur on friday afternoon. i, of course, was grumpy and nasty because we had to get up at 6 and then we had to fly coach AGAIN (imagine!). we got something to eat, and then my old roommate joy came to pick us up. we all waited at the airport for a while for her sister tricia (whom many of you met in new york) and then we all drove into KL together.

let me tell you something about my old roommates: they rule. they are without question the most generous and hospitable people i have ever met. joy, jee, tricia and pei fen (of spicy noodles fame) all bought us return tickets to go to kuching, in borneo. do you believe it? THEY LOVE ME SO MUCH! (i always said they were very smart girls.) joy, tricia and jee have also taken us out for every meal we ate outside of the hotel, and they were all delicious. on friday, we went to a place in petaling jaya, their suburb, and we had this amazing tofu and the house specialty: crabs. i have never seen tim have so much fun with food. whack, bam, smack with the hammer, with crab ALL OVER his face. ah, to be married to a 3 year old...they took us to lunch on saturday, to a chinese-malaysian restaurant outside the city with even more good food! let me tell you that the girls have done all the ordering at all the restaurants and it was DAMN FINE. at the saturday lunch place, we had some very interesting desserts, one which prominently featured shrimp paste. then they took us to batu caves, a hindu temple inside a cave at the end of about 47987395874398 stairs. it was very cool, except for the MONKEYS OF DOOM. these monkeys didn't try to kill us (which was fortunate, b/c the stairs almost did), but they were pretty stinky. i think i am liking monkeys less and less every day! after batu caves, we went to KLCC, the huge mall, to get me some sandals, and then we went to chinatown. in chinatown, we ate at yet another place we would never have found on our own (most of these places didn't even have menus, so we wouldn't have even been able to order), and despite what they say, i am pretty sure the girls ordered us earthworms for dinner. they were tasty, but i KNOW they were worms. (don't try to trick me, girls, i am too smart for you!) then, yesterday, joy came out alone and took us to have an indian meal, which i think was my favorite (tim's was obviously the seafood feast on friday). again, no menus, and we ate with our fingers off of banana leaves on the table. it was friggin' DELISH! i never want to use utensils again!! then, joy took us to see the national temple, and to buy us tickets for the NICE bus to singapore on friday.

can you believe these girls? tim and i think we might move here just so we can be fat and happy and never pay for anything!

and, our hotel. we're staying at the ritz. i love the ritz. i want to live in the ritz just like manny ramirez and have cake on my bedside table every night. we had a lovely butler named dorothy who did our laundry for free (sweet action!) and the people at the hotel were so nice. i am in love with our waiter from breakfast, savi, who managed to get the 20-minute eggs benedict for me in only 7 minutes this morning.
we're staying there again on thursday and finally, we will be taking the girls out for dinner--at the hard rock cafe, so we can eat some fine american food of their choosing.

people suck

aw, crap. i rant and rage about how great bali is and how you should all go there and three days later, it gets bombed. i am so worried about my powers of evil now--add this to the list of bad things i've done!

unfortunately, i had all kinds of funny things to say, but it all seems kind of pointless now. i am very depressed about the bombings, and disgusted that this could happen twice to as special a place as bali, and even more disugsted that the wonderful people who live there have to go through all this again. our taxi driver had told us they were almost back on their feet, to where they were three years ago. not any more. i wish i had something funny to say, but it makes me sick to think about it. it makes me even sicker that my first thought at seeing the news last night was relief that we weren't even there, when it should have been sadness for those beautiful people.

we're in KL now, with my old roommates from melbourne, and we were having a great time until we saw the news last night. i'm sure today will be better. i'll try to post something funny either later today or tomorrow about all our malaysian exploits.

and the red sox lost. &^^&%%$^%# (*^%%$#$%!!