Geekery: Budgeting for South East Asia

Remember when I said that we'd be doing our tour of South East Asia at a cost of $70/day (for 2 people!)? Remember when you thought, "That's insanely cheap, there is simply no way that is possible."? Remember when I proved you wrong? No? Well get ready because the data is right here!

Picture it: the waves lapping at the shore, the sun sinking into the South China Sea, a brightly colored drink in a pretty glass adorned with an orchid, half naked children running like mutant 2 legged crabs through the surf, a stray dog shoving his head into your crotch...the tip tap tip tap of fingers on keyboard, a beautiful color-coaded spread sheet. You can take the manager out of the project but you can't take the project manager out of the girl.

Much to Geoff's constant annoyance I spent some small amount of each day in paradise entering our expenditures into a Google spreadsheet so that I could hopefully come home to the wonderful fun of proving myself right. I also spent a similar amount of time each day raising my eyebrows and quietly fuming when Geoff ordered a second gin and tonic because how will we ever stay on budget if you insist on $6 in cocktails every day? (Of course, I have to acknowledge that it was either $6 in cocktail costs or considerably more in hospital fees from when he eventually broke down and strangled my OCD, penny-pinching ass -- so really gin was the more budget friendly option).

Before we get into the exciting data, a few caveats. There are for sure errors in my data and I have this fear that some crazy internet person is going to comb through it and email me copious notes about all of my mistakes. This is obviously a paranoid fantasy because while there are FOR SURE tons of crazy people on the internet who would do this, I am almost positive that I have yet to attract enough internet stalkers to have to worry about the crazies coming after me just yet. I only wish I was popular enough to have to worry about someone (or even multiple someones) OCD-ing it up on my lunch costs. But just in case, let me state that there are errors in this data. This is because I often didn't have access to wifi and thus was unmotivated to touch the computer (You mean I won't be able to read about funny cats? I'm out.). This is also because even though I sometimes like to pretend that I have a super-human memory, I still forget things. This is also because sometimes I cheated. Here is a list of ways that I totally cheated on the budget:

• I did not include flight costs. It is totally possible to recreate our trip using only buses and thus spending WAY less money but sometimes when you're on an overnight bus ride listening to the horn that the driver leans on once a minute as if to scream, "Wake up whitey, you're about to die!" You remember that you can totally afford a $50 plane ticket and that while, yes, this will totally screw the budget it might make up for that sin with a night of sleep and not being dead on the side of a highway in Vietnam.
• I did not include souvenir or gift costs so my firends and family may never know exactly how cheap knock off tshirts are in Bangkok.
• I did not include the cost of our scuba diving course because even though scuba diving in Thailand is shockingly cheap (we paid $278.43 each for the four day certification course with 4 dives) it cannot be done for $35/day/person and we had pre-approved that particular out of budget splurge. The budget and I thoroughly enjoyed the 4 days of free hotel room that came with the course.
• For the last 13 days of our trip I threw the budget out the window. These days were by far the most expensive on our trip. We lived it up in hotels built for very discerning Japanese business men and/or families of Germans. We drank singapore slings made with top shelf gin. We took taxis because we were too lazy (and fancy) for public transit. Sometimes we got into a tuktuk without even arguing about the price which means we paid 5 times more then we needed to and we didn't even care. We were the Mr. Howel and Lovey of Thailand and it was grand. Geoff wanted to continue recording the budget during these days of excess just for the hilarious comparison factor but I had to insist that we not do this because when the budget is in play I simply cannot stop thinking about how much more awesome the data would look if I just had one less mai tai, one less foot massage, one less bag of cookies from the mini bar -- and really, who wants to live like that?

Ok, enough blathering on to the data!

Days In Budget: 71

Hotel: $1,165.38

Food + Drink: $2,229.07

Travel: $604.71

Visas: $225.00

Tourism: $640.54

Local Transport: $361.03

Total Spent: $5,302.14

Daily Average: $74.68

Ok, so obviously we went over budget. It is difficult (nay, impossible) for me to type that sentence without following it up with a list of excuses which is exactly what I will do in just a moment here but first I will own it. We went over budget. That's ok.

Because, you see, we didn't have to. We could have quite easily stayed on budget. There are scores of days (46 to be exact) in my little spreadsheet that are happily under budget. There is even one day (February 17th) where we spent $25.15 -- thanks in part to that free hotel room that we got from our scuba class but mostly to the fact that sitting on the beach don't cost a thing. The problem was that when we went over budget we partied like Scrooge McDuck (if Mr. McDuck had been partying in Asia and if, instead of a pool full of gold coins, he had a really awesome tour of the Vietnam countryside followed by 3 cocktails OR a fancy sleeping car for his 12 hour train ride OR some sweet Laos visas). What I'm saying is that when we figured that we were going over budget anyway we seemed to say "well the diet is screwed for today, might as well eat an entire cheesecake." (This is an attitude that I have also employed in a less metaphorical way with actual cheesecakes and actual diets). Our most expensive day in Asia (3/8/2010) was a major blow out -- $198.50 -- we went on a tour of Angkor Wat which not only meant playing for a tour guide ($27) but also going to breakfast and dinner at the pricey establishments that our tour guide is getting kick backs to drop us off at, but more important than all that (which alone would have resulted in a $85.50 day) we bought our Vietnam Visas which (including delivery fees) cost a whopping $113.

In addition to the pain of Visa costs which made us consider looking into boarder crossing coyote services we spent a lot on getting from one place to another. For a while I even considered pulling all travel costs out of the budget since they were painfully expensive and since after a few Biere La Rues it was easy to convince yourself that travel wasn't part of a daily budget! And of course, there was the cheating. If we're not going to count flights why count pricey train rides or even cheap bus tickets?

I would also like to not count all of Cambodia. You'd think hotel rooms with bathroom walls that don't extend to the ceiling and towns covered with a thin layer of garbage would, if nothing else, be easy on the wallet but NOT SO! Since the country is much poorer then Thailand or Vietnam (Source) we kind of expected to live like kings -- but this was not to be. Part of the problem is that we spent a lot of time in Siem Reap visiting Angkor Wat and the surrounding ruins which are swarming with westerners and thus very expensive (ok, comparatively expensive... our average per day cost in Siem Reap was $81.92 which wouldn't even come close to covering our estimated cost of a night in our very own Brooklyn apartment (~$91)). The other part of the problem is that Cambodia is just hard and Geoff and I are comforted by the fancy. After a day of mourning the deaths of the past and turning away the legions of poor children we felt like we deserved some AC and our own bathroom. (Better people would probably feel like they too could do without but we are not better people).

Conversely we had been warned by many a traveler that Vietnam would be pricey but somehow it was by far our cheapest destination (possibly because we both would happily live off of $.50 Ban Mis made by an old lady on a scummy street corner). We scored in the north by visiting Hanoi and Halong Bay during the low season (downside: too cold to swim, upside: $6 rooms, uncrowded waters and not getting eaten by giant jellyfish). As far as I can tell the rest of the country is just always cheap. Our average hotel cost in Vietnam was $15.16 (compared to a trip-wide average of $17.66) and the hotels were markedly nicer than those in other countries -- we had AC, hot showers, complete bathroom walls, balconies AND CNN international! Over 22 days we had 24 meals that cost under $5. One day in Hue we had lunch for $.78 -- granted it was pho and coffee eaten while seated on a dirty curb but STILL! If you wanna live like a king Vietnam is highly recommended.

Ok, enough. I could continue to entertain you with the minutia of cost of traveling in South East Asia but I suspect that there are no readers left down here at the bottom of the page. If you're planning a trip of your own or if you're one of those elusive Random Access Babble super fans I'll happily (if a little wearily) send you a copy of the grand spreadsheet, just drop me and email.

50 Ways to Die in 'Nam

Shortly before we left on our South East Asia Adventure my dad remarked that it was difficult for him to relate to our plans since he "spent most of my 20s trying to avoid an all expense paid trip to South East Asia." Dad was afraid of meeting his maker in Vietnam and that's understandable because even without a war raging this country is a danger zone. I know that I have, perhaps, a lower bar than most for declaring my eminent demise (see: here, here...) but in just 2 days on Cat Ba island I almost died 10-400 times.

(to the tune of 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover)

The problem can't be just inside my head, you must agree

This place is cursed as you will quickly see

You should stop reading now if you are my mom

There must be fifty ways to die in 'Nam

Cat Ba is located in northern Vietnam at the south end of Halong Bay. We visited in the lowest of low season when the bay was misty and the water cold and the hotel rooms with a balcony facing the sea were only $6 (which got you not only a bed and a shower but, inexplicitly, also a huge poster of a naked lady!). Most of our first full day in town was spent cruising around Halong Bay oohing and awwing at the limestone islands, and while I'm sure we could have fallen overboard and drown (esp after the lunch time beers) all felt fairly safe until we arrived at our last stop on Monkey Island.

When we wondered off of the boat and there were 5 primates on the beach surrounded by 10 or so people from another tour. The monkeys were rolling around in the sand and scurrying about which was 100% cute until we discovered that someone had given the smallest monkey some beer, then suddenly it was 90% sad and only about 10% hilarious. It soon became 30% sad, 5% hilarious and 65% life threatening when two monkeys suddenly charged Geoff grabbing him around the ankles and baring their teeth as he tried to kick them off while running towards the surf... Avoid the drunk primate, Kate...Thankfully, the monkeys seemed adverse to swimming in the chilly water (or maybe they just smartly wanted to avoid the beach ball sized jellyfish that patrol the bay... Don't get stung by a jelly, Kelly).

We started out our second day on Cat Ba island with bike rentals -- the national park where they keep the supposedly adorable ginger haired langers was only 12 or 18 kilometers away (depending on your source) which (mostly because I forgot how to convert miles to kilometers) sort of sounding like a distance that I could bike. Barely out of town my bike started making a weird clicking noise which was the perfect excuse to dismount and walk up the first punishing cliff... Could be a heart attack, Jack... The hills did not quit, 6% grade, 9%... and I was reduced over and over again walking the bike. Thank god Geoff and the new friends we had hooked up with were also huge wimps because if I'd had to watch Lance Armstrong breeze up and down the hills urging me to live strong I'd probably be rotting in a Vietnamese prison finding out if communists are pro death penalty (You could get the chair, Blair).

The national park is lush and misty and the steps up the hillside are covered in a slick coating of mud... Try not to slip and fall, Paul...It would be beautiful if I could spare any time from my "oh god the bees are going to eat me" dance. I have never been stung by a bee due primarily to a strict implementation of the brilliant "when you see a be run away" plan. But I can't run up or down or into the forest without risking a slip slide off of the mountain top so instead I stomp my feet and spin around and say things like "Oh god Geoff! They're coming for me!" Our new friends totally thought I was the coolest girl ever. As I gingerly climb hill number 4027 which involves a rusted out ladder precariously balanced over a sea of jagged boulders a pair of Aussie girls are descending. They mention that the top is not far off, that the view is fabulous and that, golly gee, the bees are in no way swarming like everyone said they would be. OH. MY. GOD...Just avoid the bee swarm, Norm...

The top of the mountain is indeed breathtaking and capped with a rickety set of stairs climbing even higher into the atmosphere. The copula at the tippy top is all cracked boards and rusted metal but my god the view was somehow enough to distract me from peeing my pants (but not enough to keep the "I am about to fall through the floor and into the forest" look out of my pictures.). ... Don't fall to your death, Beth....

Down we climb. Back to the bikes and a new route that the park ranger swears is all flat and easy. Liar Liar Liar. The buses squeak by us forcing me to hug my bike up against the edge of each limestone cliff... Don't get run over, Grover... My legs, oh my legs. I start to wonder what will happen if I physically cannot continue to propel my body over the hills. Will I sleep here on the gravel? Will one of these large construction trucks pick me up? Will Geoff be able to carry me and my bike on his back while peddling?

Somehow I make it back to town sore but alive and after much beer drinking and a $3 massage I head to bed hopeful that my aching muscles won't render me paralyzed come morning.

If I'm lucky I won't die in my sleep tonight

And I hope in the morning my legs will work alright

And then I passed out and I thought, as usual I was right

There must be fifty ways to die in 'Nam

Fifty ways to die in 'Nam

Cinderella Goes to Vietnam

Like all women, I sort of believe that if I could just find the right dress the boy would fall in love with me, I'd be crowned queen, and everyone I went to junior high with would be forced to sign an affidavit affirming that, despite what they may have said in 1991, I am actually very very cute. So when I found out that in Vietnam custom tailored clothing was as pleantiful as noodles in my soup, as four year old girls selling ugly soviener fans, as plastic bags floating like sad jellyfish in the Mekong River, I was thrilled for 30 seconds before I became terrified. What no one ever tells Cinderella is that no amount of tulle will make her thighs smaller. And Cindy is never expected to design her own dress -- the birds do all of the hard work!

Of course, I arrived in Hoi An with a plan. While I'd googled my netbook to death looking for advice on tailors and fantasized for weeks about the outfits I'd create what I actually really needed was a new suit. I figured the most practical thing to do was to have something made at a couple of different tailors and pick the one I liked best to help me suit up. Hoi An has (for once I am not exagerating) over 200 tailor shops and they mostly seem like duplicates of each other with the same double breasted jackets, flowy sundresses and business trousers hanging in the entry way. There are a couple of higher end places that are working harder than most to cater to Western tastes with uniformed staff and free bottles of water. This forced me to struggle over the battle of best price vs. possibly better quality. The fancy pants store was charging $45 for a pair of fancy pants and $15-$50 for a dress shirt -- basically JCrew sale prices. The smaller shop with just the owner hanging around in jeans to serve you charged $25 for trousers and $10 for shirts -- not quite yard sale cheap but a reasonable improvement. Ordering pants and shirts was fairly simple -- I started with what they had hanging in the windows and modified to match the vision of the Bannana Republic Martin Fit pants that make my thighs seem less thunderous than usual. Happily, save the very cute custom tag and buttons, the cheapie prototype pants are just as good as the fancies and I place my order for pinstripes at $75 cheaper than expected.

It's after the practical shopping is done that things fall apart. This shopping is fun and I love clothing; so why not get some dresses? Some shirts? Some casual tops? Do I need a sequined formal gown with a mile long train? Cause they have those! ROYAL BALL HERE I COME! I suppose I didn't really need anything other than a suit, but the thing is -- I have not been shopping in over 2 months. This is probably the longest I've gone without a new shirt since high school when the mall was a 4 hour drive. Add to this the fact that I have worn the same shoes everyday since February 8th. Add to that the fact that in Vietnam I am a millionaire and you have the recipe for my new wardrobe.

If only I had even a smidge of Project Runway in my DNA (or magical little birdies in my hotel room) things might have been easier. But instead I stand in front of bolts of beautiful fabric completely perplexed. How can I look at 65 pages of dreams and dollars and diagrams and see a technological wonder but be unable to translate yards of silk into anything more complicated than a table cloth?

Fashion is too much like dancing. One minute you're smiling at the mirror or in the arms of the prince shaking whatever you've decided might be your groove thing; the next you're wondering -- Why are my hands in the air? Why does this neckline have five layers of ruffles? Why has my foot been taken over by epyleptic seizers? Why does this dress have a huge bow over my butt? When you think things through you start to worry that you look ridiculous. And you DO! We all look ridiculous constantly -- the only reasonable outfit is brown sweats and a baggy tshirt but nobody (save the occasional C# programmer) would ever actually wear such a thing.

As I try to design casual seperates the thoughts that fly through my head are suddenly imbicile -- "I LIKE DRESSES!" "RED IS A NICE COLOR!" There are a lot of red dresses in the world and the tailor wants more from me than "can you make me look pretty?" What I would have given for one of the hundreds of JCrew catalouges that are right now overflowing the basket where my neighbor is trying desperately to stuff all of my mail. As I try to mentally construct a dress that is pretty but interesting, unique but likely to look good on my bottom heavy hourglass the tailor hovers over me. "They are very nice here," she says, holding a tape measure around my boobs. She is the third Hoi An tailor to comment on my very western breasts which almost makes up for the free flowing comments about how enormous my thighs. With all the pressure to make myself into Cinderella and no Fairy Godmother in sight I'll take whatever compliments I can get.

Despite the trepidation over fashion design I still get completely out of control.

For roughly $325 I bought:

• 2 pairs of dress pants
• 1 3 piece suit
• 3 button down shirts
• 4 dresses
• 2 pairs of shoes

The speed that the tailors in this town work is a project management dream. An order for a suit placed at 7pm results in a fitting at 3pm the next day. I'm starting to doubt The Mythical Man Month -- if you need a baby in 4 weeks you should at least look into getting 9 Vietnamease tailors to attempt to put one together (but beware, rush order will incure additional fees and at the last minute they may have to substitute a polyester blend for actual fingernails).

The tailors custom fit each piece of clothing at least twice which is great except that they want you to have an educated opinion on things like fit and cut and how to fix them. This is hard for someone whose fashion vocabulary is as limited as my own. The moment of terror arrived when I'm standing in front of a mirror thinking "RED ALERT! The prince will never ask me to dance in this!" but have no ability to explain the problem. The tailor made exactly what was designed by Klemm Concepts, a sort of awkward shirt that despite its bright yellow polkadots manages to scream 54 year old woman who became a grandma much too early in life. How to translate such a problem into something a seamstress can act on seems impossible so I'm left hoping someone at the factory has a wand and a spare can of Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo.

The second dress I pick up is a jersey number that I figure will make a good beach cover up for our last couple of weeks in Thailand and a decent brunch outfit for summer 2010 once we return to mimosas in Park Slope. After two fittings I take it home only to find that when I shake and shimmy my ample bosoms my bra peeks out the top. Geoff thinks this is no problem but you can't go by him -- he's constantly trying to convience me that a bra alone is evening wear and if you'd like a sweeping view of Crackville you can stop by his ass anytime. But the lesson learned is that I need to figure out what I want and how to vocalize it before I take anything else out of the shop. So, despite fears that the tailor will hate me and that I don't actually know what I'm talking about anyway I muster up the courage to have sleeves redone, waistlines moved and jackets lined in electric blue.

And I look good! I can't promise that I'll be queen by July (the clothing has been shipped by sea and will not ride the tide into Brooklyn until sometime in June) but I'm at least hoping to retain the prince that I've got (who had some new shorts designed and for now is crackville free) and return to the real world looking like the prettiest thing in the boardroom and if anyone from Home Street Middle School wants to eat some crow, please, drop me and email. Cinderella never had to design her own ball gowns or find her own glass slipper, or figure out why the website has been down since 3am. Cinderella never wore pinstripes. Maybe I could teach her a thing or two.

Adventures in Boarder Crossing

A terrible thing happened about a week ago in Siem Reap, Cambodia to an anonymous Cambodian motorbike driver who had the incredible misfortune to put head to pavement at an intersection just out of town. A much much less terrible thing happened to me on the same day when I had the misfortune to be in a tuktuk driving by the scene of the accident to see his lifeless body -- his neck squashed down as if his shoulders had tried to cram themselves inside of his head, a stream of urine trickling into the gutter. His girlfriend sobbing at the side of the road, the ambulance finally speeding by us a good 20 minutes later. So it is with this incident in mind that I assure all concerned parties (my mom, Geoff's mom, etc) that my healthy fear of motorbikes has only grown healthier and that truly we are trying to avoid them at all costs but it would be impossible for me to overstate how difficult this is. We always look for taxis, buses and buffalo rides, we always consider walking but all too often we find our behinds precariously perched on the back of a speeding bike. This is exactly how I traveled across the border into Vietnam, my backpack held between the drivers' legs, my head stuffed into a Winnie the Pooh helmet meant for a 7 year old girl, my mind trying to stave off images of the ghost of the dead moto driver with Geoff's face as I watch the sweaty back of his tshirt speed off ahead of me.

Motorbikes were not part of our tenuous plan.

We knew that from Sihanoukville, Cambodia we wanted to move on to Vietnam but we didn't want to go straight to Ho Chi Minh City which posed a problem when it came to bus schedules -- everything goes straight to Ho Chi Minh skipping the entire Mekong Delta. Our only other option seemed to be a $40 taxi to the border. We figured that once across the border there must be services -- taxis, buses, Vietnamese coffee falling like rain -- so off we went.

Cambodia doesn't seem to have traffic laws. Or if they do, they are as follows:

1. Pedestrians yield to bikes, which yield to motorbikes, which yield to tuktuks. which yield to cars, which yield to trucks and buses. Buffalos yield to no man.
2. When in doubt honk your horn A LOT. This applies to passing, driving on the wrong side of the road, saying hi to your buddy and letting everyone know that you are driving somewhere in a very very big hurry.

So I spend the 3 hour taxi ride clinging to the door handle and trying not to scream out that we're about to die. We live. And there it is, the border, I guess. Proceeded by about 50kms of dirt road and seemingly the only building within another 50kms is a cinder block affair locked between two railroad gates, in the distance beyond gate number two is a small guard post and... that's it, not exactly official looking. We are immediately accosted by a couple of motorcycle guys offering to drive us across the border and into the town 15kms away. There may have also been a few cows milling about in the dust but there were no taxis. I don't think Vietnam allows livestock powered border crossing, no matter how backwoods this whole process seemed.

I had dressed that morning prepared for a day of sitting and, anticipating a need for a cool breeze in the nether regions, slipped on a short green cargo skirt. Straddling the back of a moto my first greeting for Vietnam was all class, "Hello! Thank you for having me in your beautiful country, please check out my crotch! How about those under-roos, huh? Just one of the many ways that I plan to honor you during the coming weeks, don't thank me now (thank me next week when I've run out of clean panties and you get a real show)."

The town we end up in is only slightly more impressive than the border. We're deposited outside of an open market with no taxi's, buses or tuktuks in sight. We are not alone. Appearing almost out of the ether is a tall thin man with teeth edged in black rot. He wants to help us. Because this town? It has no buses. It has no taxis. It hardly has guesthouses. And he has family in the USA and he would very much like to take us to the next town to catch the bus to... somewhere else. This is a predicament because we have no real idea where we are and almost no desire to stay but on the other hand this whole schpeel feel like a scam. Because -- if you don't take the bus in 30 minutes? There are no more buses for 3 days. No, he has no idea how much the bus costs, yes he'd love to drive us to an ATM, no he would never lie, yes he runs a travel agency. So after much hemming and hawing and pointing out to a certain boyfriend that in the future we really need to do more than just show up at the border with a smile we decide to take the bus because the other options seem limited and because the Lonely Planet makes the town the bus is going to, Can Tho, sound like a paradise on the Mehkong. There is only one way to get to the bus stop -- can you guess?

My driver is texting while we merge onto the highway. My new helmet (sans the protective visage of Winnie) is way too big and with ever bump it bounces up and back down smacking me on the head as punishment for not just going to Ho Chi Min City with all of the other whiteies. When we get to the bus stop and the bus finally arrives we're quoted a price of $30 each -- sounds OK right? Well it's actually insane. The absolute most we have paid for any bus to anywhere in South East Asia is $12. But.... what are you gonna do, camp out at this road side stand posing as a bus stop? Take a third moto ride back into nowheresville? Accept that you're getting scammed, pay the money and chalk it up to adventure? Here we go.

So, on to the bus -- the very, very expensive bus. Other, cheaper, buses in South East Asia have had A/C, free bottles of water, karaoke, one even gave us each a tiny box of pastries! This bus... has seats with metal rods sticking out of the sides, it has a door that does not close, it has a rickety shelf that threatens to dislodge and topple on my head somewhere about 700 miles from the nearest ER. Can Tho, is 6 hours away. I had a small fruit salad at 8am, it is now 2pm and as if to taunt me fate drives us pass row after row of road side stands screaming "Bahn Mi!" "Bao!" "Other obviously delicious thing that I've never heard of because Bahn Mi and Bau are the only Vietnamese words that I know!" My tummy growls.

The bus is slow and seems to lack any sort of suspension system and it stops every 15 feet for just long enough to be annoying but nowhere near long enough to jump out and grab a sandwich. But it gets us there... or it gets us somewhere. Suddenly, 3 hours into the trip, a woman in the front of the bus hustles Geoff and I out onto the street and into a pedi-bike built for 2, well, 2 Vietnamese with asses much smaller than ours. We managed to squeeze onto the contraption with Geoff perched up on the back edge of the seat for a quick bike ride through traffic. Where were we going? How long would it take? Do they have Bahn Mi there? Because I am starving. We arrive at a seemingly random stretch of road next to a red minibus which is next to a road stand sign where they clearly have sandwiches and might even have Cokes, praise Buddah.

With my first Bahn Mi swimming around in my tummy, at least another 45 minutes of waiting by the side of the road and another bus ride of indeterminate length in my future it was time to answer the painful call of nature. I asked our minibus host to point to the closest lady's room and was directed to a shack just off the road. This was clearly the home of the woman lounging in a hammock in the front room so out of respect I slipped my shoes off before entering and followed her outstretched finger down the one hallway which ended in what, I guess, had to be the bathroom. The light in the room was dim but in one corner I could make out a huge trough full of water with a small bucket floating inside which I recognized as the water for toilet flushing, next to that was a medium bucket half full of water and clothing... there was clearly no toilet. I peeked out around the corner to confirm that the two room shack did not have a white linoleum room with a Glade plug in and a roll of double quilted Charmin hidden just around the corner. Nope. OK, so, no toilet, time to man up and look for the hole that must be somewhere on the floor. I stooped over a bit in the half light scanning the concrete for a darker than average patch with no luck. But... the floor did seem a bit slanted and the walls didn't extend all of the way down, about 8 feet below me I could just glimpse wet leaf litter on the ground. It occurred to me that maybe I was just supposed to pee on the floor. But what if I was wrong? What if I started peeing on the floor and the lady came running in justifiably angry? Also: how do I avoid peeing on my bare feet (which, it now occurs to me, are almost for sure standing in someone else's pee.)? I couldn't muster the courage to go back into the living room and try to pantomime asking the question "Hey? Should I pee on your floor or....?" They say you'll know when you've hit bottom... I pulled back the lingerie-sheer curtain and squatted. I have never peed so quickly. As I walked out of the living room a few minutes later the home owner demanded 5000 dong ($.25) which seemed like a good deal, I'd have charged A LOT more if someone wanted to pee on my floor. And yes, that's me outside of the shack just after doing the deed. Geoff thought we should capture the moment.

Eventually the new bus leaves and we roll through another great swath of lush greenery punctuated by food stands and flying kites as the sun goes down and I think, ok, if we ever get there I think I'll like it here. Rough arrival notwithstanding Vietnam is a huge contrast to Cambodia. The bigger roads have landscaping in the median and all of the cows that we've seen have been on a leash. It seems like a nice place. So when we arrive at the Can Tho bus station I'm not even that troubled when the only transportation option is the third moto ride of the day this time performed with my 14 kilo backpack on my back and my much lighter day pack on my front. If you come to Vietnam forget packing what you can carry, pack only what you can balance on the back of a speeding motorcycle.