Backpacking Northward Part 2: Da Lat

Second stop: Da Lat
Distance from Ho Chi Minh City: 306.6km/190.5 miles
Time spent on bus (from Mui Ne): 5 hours
Time spent in Da Lat: 2 days, 1 night

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We made our way to Da Lat from Mui Ne in a minivan rather than the usual sleeper bus, whipping around curves and climbing steep mountain ranges. As usual, our driver was driving as fast as he could, passing people in front of him, even when he couldn’t see if there were other vehicles coming the opposite way and there’s a 500 foot drop next to us. Despite this, we did manage to see some incredible vistas along the way.

We rode in this deathtrap of a minivan for what seemed like eons, then eventually arrived in the gorgeous and haven-like city of Da Lat.

Da Lat is situated in the mountainous countryside and is 4,900 feet above sea level. While driving through the city in the minivan, we were instantly blown away by its beauty. It was rich with color, from the pastel paint on the buildings to the plethora of flowers on almost every inch of the city.

We arrived in the late afternoon and decided to walk around a bit. We instantly noticed how cool the weather was. It was only around 70 degree Fahrenheit, which was a nice break from the impossibly hot and humid Mui Ne, from which we just came. We explored the nearby night market, which was bustling with hundreds of locals and a few tourists as well. We tried the Vietnamese popular banh xeo, which is a fried pancake stuffed with bean sprouts, green onions, egg, and various other ingredients. We had tried it before, but it was particularly delicious here… maybe because it had twice as much stuff inside!

After the night market, we decided to turn in early, since we had a long day of touring around the city the following day.

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We started our tour at around 8 a.m. with, ironically, the same bus driver as the one from Mui Ne the previous day! And, of course, he drove just as carelessly and wildly as the day before. At least there were no mountain ranges to climb this time.

Our first stop was a palace, which we never heard of, really, and I still don’t know it’s name– even after Googling it! It was pretty on the outside of the building with the many flowers and so on, but inside, it was just a house with some old furniture. Not anything particularly interesting to us.

Our second stop was a well-known church. It was a rather useless stop for us, considering we don’t really care for seeing churches; that, and we didn’t even get to go inside it, so we stood outside and stared at it for twenty minutes or so. But, we were able to see a nice view of the city from the back.

Our next stop was one of our favorites: a tram car ride over the city. We sat with a Vietnamese couple who was super friendly and enjoyed taking both secret and obvious selfies with us throughout the ride. They were great companions during our tram car ride, even though we didn’t speak the same language. The ride was also absolutely mesmerizing! To our right, we were able to see the bright and colorful city of Da Lat, sitting cozily among the mountains, and to our left, we could see untouched mountains. It was one of my favorite sights during our entire trip.

After the tram car ride, we went right across the street to a Buddhist monastery, which was undeniably beautiful, but as always, overrun by tourists.

However, whenever we weren’t swimming in loud and constantly camera-shuddering tourists, it was quite peaceful.

After the monastery, we were taken to a famous waterfall down the road. I thoroughly enjoy waterfalls, but this waterfall was pathetic. We had to climb down a mountain, which took almost thirty minutes, among–yep, you guessed it–hundreds of tourists. Then, when we finally reached the waterfall, it wasn’t even large or spectacular in any way! It was small and incredibly anti-climatic. And, as always, crawling with tourists. Needless to say, we immediately climbed back up the mountain to get the hell out of there.

We then made our way to one of our most anticipated stops: the Valley of Love. The Valley of Love is an enormous area dedicated to love and it’s decorated with a vast amount of flowers, statues, fountains, and even mazes! It was placed almost on the side of a hill, which you could easily climb down among large, brightly-colored butterflies and some more eye-popping flowers. There was a pond at the bottom of the hill, where you could float on swan boats with your love and admire the scenery.

Remember the Vietnamese couple from the tram car? We found them again at the Valley of Love and they insisted on taking pictures with us! 

The Valley of Love was such a wonderful place to be, especially with the person you love. It was so well-kept and there was a surprise around every corner. I mean, even the bathrooms and benches were aptly decorated!

The second to last stop of our tour was spent at a large shop. The only reason we went was because tours in Vietnam force you to go there with hopes you’ll buy something so that they could get a commission. Annoying, but what could we do?

The last and final stop was the old train station. It was built in 1938 by French architects, like much of the city had been. It was cool, I guess, but nothing too astounding, to be honest. It was once again covered in tourists.

We took a small amount of pictures, then returned back to where the bus picked us up. We then instantly hopped into a cab and headed to the Crazy House, a place we’d been looking forward to since before our trip!

The Crazy House was pretty much what its name implies: a crazy house. It has winding stairs, tiny and oddly shaped rooms, and various other spectacularly odd sights. On the top of one area of the Crazy House, you could see the city of Da Lat, which was, as always, absolutely beautiful.

After waltzing around there for a while, we decided to head to a popular cafe that we heard about to wind down and get some grub. It’s a cafe that’s in an old train car situated on old train tracks! It was very rustic, homey, and played only songs about trains with walls covered in old train pictures and newspaper clippings. The food and coffee were surprisingly delicious! The staff was kind and friendly towards us, which is always a huge plus. And a neighborhood cat came in and jumped on my lap for a cuddle, which was a lovely addition to our experience there!

My furry new friend and I! Can you tell that I was happy for some unexpected kitty cuddles?

By the end of the day, we were absolutely exhausted. We returned to our AirBNB and relaxed, then fell asleep. The following day, we headed to our next (and incredibly far) destination.

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Have you ever been to Da Lat? What was your experience like there? What was your favorite place in Vietnam? Do you desire to visit Da Lat?

Thank you for reading! Next stop: Hoi An!

Backpacking Northward Part 1: Mui Ne

Considering we hadn’t discovered all of Thailand when we lived there (do you believe we missed Chang Mai!?), Matt and I decided early on to not miss anything in Vietnam. After working for weeks straight and saving up some cash, we went on a backpacking excursion northward by bus from Ho Chi Minh City and made various stops along the way. This post is dedicated to our first stop along the way.

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First stop: Mui Ne
Distance from Ho Chi Minh City: 215.3 km/133 miles
Time spent on bus: 3.5 hours
Time spent in Mui Ne: 3 days, 2 nights

This was our first experience with a sleeper bus. Sleeper buses are buses with three rows of reclined seats with two levels on each row. The overall idea of them is relatively smart. You can recline and relax, look out the window, possibly use the bathroom if you need to, sleep with comfort, etc. However, they weren’t as practical as they seem…in Vietnam, at least.

Sleeper buses are, most of the time, hot. Bus drivers love having the AC as low as possible if not completely off, even if it’s 125 degrees Fahrenheit with humidity outside and everyone is dripping sweat, including themselves. The seats are far smaller than you would hope as well. They were slightly uncomfortably small for me and I’m average height in Asia. But, if you’re taller than me, sleeper buses will undoubtedly be uncomfortable. Matt is almost six feet tall, so he was scrunched during every sleeper bus ride we took. And the bus drivers like to drive like they’re in Grand Theft Auto, so that doesn’t help.

Aaanyway, we arrived in Mui Ne around midday and instantly noticed upon exiting our bus that it was unbearably hot. Ho Chi Minh City is hot, too, naturally, but not as hot as Mui Ne. After walking about fifteen minutes in blinding heat from the bus stop to our motel we found on AirBNB, we dropped off our stuff and got some sandwiches by the beach at a surprisingly deserted restaurant/bar.

That day, we decided to relax a bit, then go on an adventure the following day. We booked a tour to see the sand dunes, which Mui Ne is known for.

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We took an afternoon tour the following day and saw a fishing village, which was not spectacular to be honest, then saw two different desert-like areas: the White Sand Dunes and the Red Sand Dunes.

Fishing Village

We were completely astounded by the natural beauty that was the White Sand Dunes once we arrived. There were towering mountains of sand right before our eyes and what was particularly amazing was that there was a lagoon right next to the sand dunes! It was unlike anything we had ever seen before.

We could’ve rented four-wheelers, but they were $10 for 15 minutes! We thought that was ridiculous, so we decided to just run around on the sand dunes and climb them ourselves. We tried to climb the tallest one at one point, but near the top, we got whipped by these non-stop powerful gusts of wind and sand, so we decided to climb down real quick!

This was the sand dune we tried to climb! See the wind blowing the sand at the top?

After a surprisingly exhausting hour of running up sand dunes in the blazing sun, we were taken sand-covered to the Red Sand Dunes, which were sadly not nearly as thrilling as the White Sand Dunes. From the tops of these dunes, you could see the ocean, which was a wonderful sight, but there were unfortunately vendors crawling all over the place, constantly bombarding you and trying to sell you anything and everything. There were also tons of tourists as well, which always takes away from the magic of experiencing anything in the world.

After the Red Sand Dunes, we were finally taken back to the bus stop, where we walked back to our AirBNB motel. That night, our kind hosts and two other guests made us a spaghetti dinner, which was delicious! We got to chat with them and eat spaghetti, which was a wonderful ending to our stay in Mui Ne. Oh, and play with the extremely friendly cats that lived there!

A note on our meals in Mui Ne: we ate at this small tiki-like restaurant called Sindbad. The food was outrageously delicious and the staff was so friendly! The food was also cheap and had excellently sized portions! We may have been in Vietnam, but we ate gyros, Greek salads, and hummus with pita the entire time we were there with zero regrets. So, if you’re in Mui Ne, DEFINITELY eat here for at least all of your meals!

Our overall experience in Mui Ne was a great one that we will won’t soon forget. However, since we went in the summer, it was extremely hot and deserted for the most part. The nightlife was nonexistent at this point, since it was the low season, so if you are looking for some excitement outside of the sand dunes, I’d head to Mui Ne at a time when it’s NOT blisteringly hot and deserted!

Have you ever backpacked in Vietnam? Did you visit Mui Ne? What was your take on it?

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Thanks for reading! Next stop: Da Lat, one of our favorite stops in Vietnam!

Home, Sweet Home: Ho Chi Minh City

Hello again, readers! I apologize now for my hiatus, but I have been outrageously busy with work and–naturally–a bit lazy. Go on. Judge me.

…Finished? Wonderful! Let me fill you in a bit on my shenanigans.

Matt and I are currently in Ho Chi Minh City and have been since late January and have been loving it! Among the numerous districts in this city, Matt and I reside in District 1, the center district with the most foreigners and most things to do. We live in Japantown, which is wonderful because we are surrounded by cozy Japanese restaurants with all the ramen we could ever want! Plus, there are Vietnamese places to eat as well and we go there a lot and get various (and often mysterious) meats with rice and/or Banh Mi. There’s also many other places to eat and places to visit within walking distance.

What have I been doing since I got here over four freakin’ months ago? Excellent question! I (and Matt, of course) have started working for an online English tutoring company called VIPKid that’s based in Beijing, China. We tutor kids one-on-one through video with the aid of a powerpoint presentation. And guys: it’s seriously the greatest job I’ve ever had. I get to choose my own hours, I work from wherever I want as long as I have WiFi, get paid a dumb amount of money for it, and get to travel anywhere I want while simultaneously making money. What more could I possibly ask for?! It’s the perfect set-up all around and I’m extremely happy about it! Anyway, Matt and I have been working a ton lately in order to save up money to travel all through Vietnam for 3-weeks (which is coming up real soon!) and a new country sometime in the near future!

We’ve also been sightseeing a bit during our down time. We’ve seen a bit of HCMC and a little bit outside the city as well. I’m excited to post separate posts on those stories in the near future as well, but for now, here are some pictures of some things we’ve seen inside the city thus far:

 

January:

District 1: Walking Street, Ho Chi Minh City Hall, Street Food Market

February:

Saigon: One Immense Chaotic Blur; Matt at an outdoor restaurant (one of many) with some grub; A bridge between District 1 and District 4; four pictures taken in Chinatown; a kebab stand; me and some friendly schoolgirls at a school I worked at for a day; Me holding some coconuts and coolers!

March:

In the Smog, Not Really Clouds: Bitexco Tower

A photo shoot with some adorable (and quite sweaty) kiddies

As for April, we actually went on trips, so I won’t post those pictures just yet! I’ll save them for other posts, as well as some others that I omitted above.

So, how is Ho Chi Minh City, all-in-all? Well, I both love and hate it simultaneously. The city is bustling during the day and there’s so much to see, taste, smell, and witness. The city is bursting with things for you to experience every moment of the day, which starts at 5:00 a.m., by the way. The people are kind, friendly, and helpful. They are always excited to hold a conversation with you and learn about you, even if they only know the sentence, “What yo’ name?” Everyone’s curious about where you come from and what you’re doing here of all places. However, sometimes all of that can be a little overbearing. The streets can sometimes be too “bustling” and noisy. And I mean, really, extremely, irritatingly noisy. Horns blare every moment at what seems like nothing. There are motorbikes everywhere, even on the sidewalks, dodging a red light or a one-way street, but not dodging the pedestrians walking on them. Trucks, buses, motorbikes, and cars fly into intersections after their light had turned red 10 seconds ago! Needless to say, “safety” isn’t observed in traffic. And sometimes the offer of “Motobike?” every three feet on your walk home from the gym can be irritating as well. Oh, and there’s negative nightlife. The entire city shuts down at 10:00 pm, which is a huge let down because I enjoy an occasional night out until 5 a.m.! I’m still young, damn it!

However, Ho Chi Minh City/Saigon is a wonderful place to be. I am not ashamed of it nor upset by it. I have had some seriously wonderful experiences here and met some life-altering folks as well. I love it, even when I hate it (yes, okay, alright, for the love of god, we hear you and your horn!!!!!). I’m extremely happy we are here and wouldn’t change our time here at all.

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I hope that this post aided in explaining what I’ve been up to lately! I will (hopefully!) post something again very soon! Stay tuned folks. Thanks for reading!

Korean Barbecue

It was a necessity for me to write a post on Korean barbecue because of its popularity and its mouth-watering, delectable, and savory flavors. …And I’m salivating already.

Our first night in Sejong City, Matt and I were invited to join a few other people from our job for some Korean barbecue. In our jet-lagged and weary state, we joined and ate some food wrapped in lettuce leaves. Due to our delirium, we didn’t quite grasp how juicy and flavorful the food truly was. 

About two months later, a couple of other teachers, Matt and I were deciding what to get for dinner one night. I suggested Korean barbecue, since I remembered that it was relatively good the last time I tried it, but since I couldn’t quite recall how good it was at the time, I wanted to give it another go. Everyone agreed and we all met up at the local barbecue joint.

We sat down at a table with a hole in the middle. Tara ordered some meat, beer, and soju for us because, after all, it’s not a meal in Korea if you don’t have some alcohol, too! The waitress left and quickly returned with a plethora of dishes. Some were side dishes, such as kimchi, pickled onions, thin sliced fish omelettes, spicy shredded scallion salad, and Korean coleslaw. She also brought a long plate filled with lettuce and partitioned plates of salt, garlic cloves, and a flavorful and mild red sauce.

A man with a bucket of hot coals appeared, then placed it into the hole in our table. Then, a grill plate was placed on top of it and the vent above our table was pulled down close to the grill. Suddenly, our raw pork and beef showed up, too! Seriously, everything is so quick in restaurants in Korea, it’s miraculous. Without hesitation, Tara picked up pieces of beef and pork and placed them on the grill.

After only a few minutes, the pieces were ready to eat! I picked up a couple of pieces of meat, which were dripping with juices, and placed them onto a leaf of lettuce. With my chopsticks, I added some salt, red sauce, onions, and shredded scallion salad to my leaf. I rolled it up and bit in and… wow. Just wow. The meat was so fresh, so juicy, so flavorful, I was just blown away. The meat in America has got nothing on the meat here, especially barbecue. Seriously. 

I proceeded to eat a lot more stuffed leaves and drink a nice amount of Cass beer and soju. I stuffed myself to pure happiness and it was perfect. I never wanted it to end! And I most certainly intend on returning there ASAP! 

Have you ever had Korean barbecue? What was your experience? 

Konglish

While living in Asia, I’ve noticed so many attempts made for using English phrases, whether it be on t-shirts or advertisements, and a majority of them are failed attempts. As an English speaker, these failures always make me laugh, so I thought I’d share some of my findings with you guys! Currently, it’s just what I’ve discovered in Korea, but I will continually add to this page while living here.

A chain pizza joint’s slogan: “Love for Women”

Not exactly a failure per say, just silly looking

But, why an Audrey Hepburn cafe???

There were zero tomatoes in this department store

To pee or not to pee? That is the question.

Woohoo!

Thank you, Korean Superman and Ironman!

Find the stereotypical wrong letter!

This nonsensical slogan was on one of my student’s shirts.

Yet another winning slogan on another student’s shirt

Okays!

Uhh, no.. We were actually looking for “corn.”

More coming soon!

Jajangmyeon (Black Soybean Noodles)

During my first month in Korea, my main food of choice was black soybean noodles, considering I didn’t (and still don’t) know much about Korean food and what’s good. They’re simple, cheap, filling, and delicious! 

We waltzed into a small restaurant during one of our first work days. Why? Because there were pictures of their food items along with cheap prices. Therefore, our hunger and wallets led us inside immediately. It turned out that we really enjoyed the fried rice we ate!

One day on one of my breaks, I decided to head there for some sustenance, but I really wasn’t in the mood for fried rice again. I decided to go out on a limb and try the dark-colored noodles on the menu, mainly because they were noodles (I love noodles) and they were only $3! Obviously, I had to have it.

After waiting only a couple of minutes, the waitress brought me a large bowl of noodles slathered in dark, chunky goop and a pair of scissors. I looked up at the waitress like a helpless, lost puppy and she picked up the scissors, stuck them in my noodles, and cut the noodles up. Why? Because the noodles turned out to be super long and when they’re cut, I wouldn’t choke on them! So, that’s smart.

After she left, I grabbed some chopsticks from the drawer in the table (yes, Korea is amazing and provides you with your utensils and napkins in a drawer on the side of your table) and dug in. Let me tell you: it was delectable. Usually, I’m not into creamy and thick sauces, but this was delicious. It had chunks of pork with diced carrots, peas, and soybeans that fit in so well with the noodles. I was in heaven! I gobbled that up so fast, I’m not even sure I breathed the entire time I was eating them.

Unfortunately, it’s a very heavy dish, so it felt a little uncomfortable in my stomach afterwards, but it was honestly so worth it! I’ve eaten it a ton of times since then and I’m sure I’ll eat it a ton more times while I’m here! I definitely highly recommend them. 🙂

Jajangmyeon with a side of radishes for a palate cleanser 

A Summation of my First Month Living and Teaching in Sejong City, Korea

Surprise! I now live and work in South Korea and have been for about a month now. And you know what? It’s honestly been an amazing ride thus far.

Here’s a bit of the background story:

Matt and I made the decision to come here to teach rather quickly and at an inconvenient time. We had just moved to San Jose, California in July to start a low-paying, high-demanding, and uninteresting after school job. While subletting there for only six days, we dropped hundreds of dollars on just living and surviving there and realized we’d need to spend a lot more in the near future on things such as a car, car insurance, an apartment (deposit and rent), and so on. We immediately realized what a ridiculous and poorly thought out decision we had made. It wasn’t so ridiculous just because of the job, the low pay, or the expensive lifestyle of San Jose, but it was mainly because we both desperately wanted to teach abroad again– and knew that before even moving to California.

Pretty stupid, right? Yeah, we thought so, too, but, I have to be honest: I had felt so relieved once we made the decision to look for teaching jobs in Korea and again when we landed the job we have currently. Fortunately, not much time had passed between the two, either! So, while we were subletting in a house in San Jose, we were getting our documents together for Korea, taking cabs here and there and back again. It was exhausting, but immensely exciting!

After our month-long sublet was over, we returned home to New York to see family and friends for a month. Then, we made our trek across the globe to South Korea!

Anyway, we’ve been in Sejong City, Korea for a month and it’s been wonderful. I’m still overwhelmingly relieved and glad we made the ultimate decision to come here and teach for a year. Just to sum up four weeks of Korea, here’s a list of stuff after we arrived:

• We landed at Incheon Airport in Seoul.
• We stayed at a random hotel in a pretty deserted part of Seoul Province (Seoul is significantly larger and more wide-spread than you would have imagined, since there’s a Seoul province and a Seoul city).
• Ate some food where we first experienced Korean food and their amazing plethora of side dishes

Side dishes!

• Knocked out from exhaustion
• Got a ride from the hotel owner back to the airport, then got a bus from the airport at to Sejong City
• When we arrived in Sejong, we were picked up by a worker from our hogwon (private school) and driven to our hogwon immediately, even though all we wanted to do was relax and take a shower!
• We had to stay with the people who we were replacing for about a week until they moved out (inconvenient, yes, but not bad because they were really nice and helpful). But, after that week, we got to have a three-bedroom, two-bathroom, clean, rent-free apartment to ourselves! (I’ll make a separate post about that in a little bit!)
• Our job had us watch the other teachers teach the day after we arrived, even with our jetlag. Apparently, this is common in Korea.
• We started teaching a few days afterward and it’s way better than teaching in Thailand. The kids care (generally) and so does the administration, which is so important. However, breaks are extremely rare during the work day. But, I honestly don’t see that as much of a negative because the day flies. Oh, and our day starts at 1:00 pm, or 2:00 pm, depending on the day of the week. So awesome.
• We explored Sejong and discovered that it’s beautiful, both naturally and industrially.

What’s this guy riding?

These are everywhere here and they’re terrifiying, but thankfully not poisonous!

This guy is a fun time.

A pizza chain’s slogan on one of their plates: “Love for Women”

I’d really love to know what this sign says…

• We worked for the entire month, having a great time doing so. The people we work with are helpful and sweet, the kids are good and the classes are small, so they’re easier to handle, and the material is easy and fun to teach.
• We went out for drinks in Sejong with a few fellow teachers one weekend and it was a great time! Except for the vomit. Korea works hard and plays hard. And so, they vomit. A lot.

• Matt and I realized that we weren’t really fans of Korean food. I mean, there’s a lot of spam in a lot of food items. Not a fan of spam. Upsetting, but we’re still trying to learn to like the food! We still have eleven months to go, after all. Here’s some food we ate so far:

Some food we cooked in front of ourselves…
Not sure of the name or what was in it!

Silkworm larvae in a Japanese restaurant in Sejong (not yummy)

Vegetable bibimbap! 

An extremely expensive meal (about $43), but it was comprised of lots of pork, which you placed in lettuce leaves, and ate with sauce and side dishes (kimchi is on the far right on bottom). Also, beer and soju! 

Black Soybean Noodles (ah-mazing, actually)

And soju (“red” flavored), which tastes wonderful.
Soju is served with most dinners and drank in shots

• Oh, and for the Korean Thanksgiving, Chuseok, our job gave us four bottles (two each) of French wine! That’s definitely worth mentioning!

Basically, Korea is amazing and totally different from Thailand in so many ways. But, we are loving it and are extremely excited for the rest of our year here! Stay tuned. 🙂

Monkey Mountain: An Eerie Hike with Ravenous Wild Monkeys

During one of our weekends off from school in January, Matt and I decided to go to Monkey Mountain, which was luckily only a couple of Song Tao rides away from our apartment. We heard about it from a couple of foreign teachers from our school and figured, hey– we don’t have anything to do today. Let’s go hang out with some wild monkeys on a mountain.

And so, we did. We hopped on one Song Tao in the stifling heat and humidity, sticking to the plastic seats and not receiving much recourse from the wind as we drove. Eventually, we got off by Bang Saen beach and walked a bit to find the blue Song Tao, which would take us in the direction of the mountain. When we told the driver that we wanted to go to Monkey Mountain, he understood (surprise!) and took us there. But, he didn’t stop to let us off, which we assumed he would do, considering we didn’t know where the mountain was or when or where to get off. He drove past macaque monkeys, other cars stopped with monkeys on their roofs, and scattered older Thai women with straw hats selling bushels of miniature bananas. But he didn’t stop. After turning right and making it back to the main road, Matt and I realized the driver wasn’t going back, so we pushed the buzzer above us to signal him to stop and we stepped off.

Already soaked with sweat, we walked at an incline back to where we drove past the monkeys. And we sweated even more. Finally, we reached the starting point of monkey mountain and yes, just as you may have imagined, there were monkeys everywhere. 

We approached one of the Thai women in the straw hats and bought a bushel of bananas to feed the monkeys. While purchasing the bananas, we noticed two things: 1. the lady was nice and spoke a bit of English, since she said “Oh my god!” when I dropped money on the ground and it was hysterical; and 2. her teeth were as black as night. I mean, they really were! I have never seen teeth that rotted before.

Anywho, we decided to climb the mountain via the sidewalk rather than the road, since there were cars coming and going there. While walking along the sidewalk, we noticed it was scattered with monkeys. As we walked along, we would hand a monkey a banana and watch as they took it from our hands and quickly ate it right in front of us.

A couple of monkeys; me handing a banana to a monkey; monkeys along the sidewalk

After a few minutes, we couldn’t shake this eerie feeling that all of the monkeys were watching us from all angles. From the sidewalk, from inside the bushes, and from the branches on the trees above us. And they really were.

It grew more terrifying as we realized that we were the only ones walking on the sidewalk. Everyone else was below us on the street, but in their cars. No one stepped out of their car. Not one person.

We continued to walk on, handing out bananas as we went. Eventually, the sidewalk ended with a staircase winding down to the road. We walked down it and had to walk the rest of the way up via the road.

A monkey sitting on the road

We also had given all of our bananas away, so we had to buy some more. However, the next Thai lady that was selling food to give to the monkeys only sold small straw-woven bowls of peanuts. So, Matt purchased one.

Monkeys, cars, and the Thai lady we bought the peanuts from (in the pink)

He walked not even ten feet and three monkeys were surrounding him and staring at the basket of peanuts with hungry eyes. He tried handing them out to the monkeys, but he wasn’t giving away enough for them. More monkeys appeared as if from nowhere, badgering Matt for the peanuts. The woman who sold us the peanuts came over and tried to stop the monkeys from overwhelming Matt, which worked for a few seconds, but once the lady walked away, they came back for more. Matt said, “Fuck this!” and placed the bowl on the ground and speed-walked away, leaving a mob of monkeys gorging themselves behind him.

We continued up the mountain, still frightful of the conniving primates, but desperate to finish the climb that we started. Dripping with perspiration, we eventually made it to a false peak, which was surprisingly beautiful. It had some steps, leading to an aged platform that looked out onto the shimmering Gulf of Thailand. It was a wonderful place of refuge!

After that, we made our way to the actual top of the mountain, which actually wasn’t as magical as we had hoped. Just more monkeys, which were crazier than the others in that they were all aggressive towards each other, tackling and biting each other, and a collection of Thai people and their cars.

We glanced at the view and continued on the road back down the mountain. After waiting several minutes, a blue Song Tao picked us up.

And what do you know? It took us past Monkey Mountain! This time, we didn’t even look at them. We just kept our wet heads inside the pickup truck and anxiously waited to leave the mountain behind.

What is your experience with wild monkeys? Where were you when you experienced them?

An Ode to Our Not-So-Wild Wild Thai Dogs

In case you weren’t already aware, there are wild dogs everywhere in Thailand. They are on every street and they’re usually in packs, rummaging around through piles of garbage. That may sound relatively terrifying, but they all tend to keep to themselves for the most part. Most of them are even nice to people! And even adorable!

As for the wild dogs by our apartment building, we were fortunate enough to be surrounded by the kind and cute ones.

I’ll give you an idea of our apartment building area just to help clarify where the wild dogs were located. We had a four floor apartment building called the Ing Swiss (who knows what they were going for with that name) and underneath it was a small, open parking lot/garage where the owners/workers lived and worked and tenants parked their cars and motorbikes. To the right of our apartment building was a very loud and bumpin’ brothel. Yes, we lived next to a brothel. Very enthralling! The owners of our apartment building also owned the brothel, so there was a pathway between the two buildings.

Most of the adult dogs lived under our apartment building in the parking lot and the one puppy who was born in early January lived in the pathway, but hung out with the other dogs in the parking lot/garage.

Okay, so basically, we had four dogs of our own! And they were all very loving and sweet and always close by.

And now, without further ado: pictures of our fur babies!

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Tao

Tao was maybe three or four years old. He was a bit mangy and when you scratched his head for even a moment, your fingertips would come up black with dirt. However, he was one of the most protective and sweetest dogs I’ve ever met. When we walked down the road to have dinner or even walk to school, he would trot in front of us and continually look back at us to make sure we were alright. He would actually walk us all the way from our apartment building to the restaurant or school. It was amazing to us!

Occasionally, we would sit outside of the Italian restaurant, Granchio’s, across the street with a couple of other foreign teachers for drinks and food. And Tao, being the big sweetheart he was, would always join us. He would sit by us and try to play bite us (he did that all the time, but never hurt anyone) to get us to pet him. He was such a sweetie.

Tao hanging out with us and a couple of friends at Granchio’s, begging for attention

Happy

Happy and her baby, Lulu

Yes, there was a dog named Happy! She was named “Happy” because she had a mean underbite and our apartment building’s owners were clever enough to come up with the ironic name. Plus, she was a very tranquil and loving dog.

She lived under our apartment building. She literally never left, so every time we came home from eating or school or traveling, she would waltz up to us, wanting food and affection. She was incredibly skinny and mangy, but loved a good headscratch.

Happy was Tao’s baby mama, by the way. Numerous times! She had a litter of puppies before we arrived and, apparently, all of her puppies died for various reasons. How sad! Then, she had another litter while we were there, but only one puppy survived: Lulu.

Lulu

Lulu was the baby of the dog club at the Ing Swiss. She was white, just like her mom, but was just as sweet as both of her parents. She was always playful (I mean, come on, she was a puppy) and loved to be held and petted. Lulu was also the cleanest of all the dogs, so obviously we all had no problem holding and petting her constantly!

I would elaborate on how adorable she is, but I think the pictures will speak better than I can!

Our foreign teacher friend, Cholla, with Lulu when she was a couple of weeks old; Matt and Lulu

Lulu; Matt with Lulu and Tao 

Lulu = Simba (sorry it’s such a short video)

Lucky

Lucky (top) and Lulu (bottom)

Last, but certainly not least, Lucky! Lucky was adopted by the two workers at the apartment building in the first couple of weeks of our living there. He was just a little puppy then and so sweet! And he was generally clean!

The workers who owned him kept him chained under the apartment building. But, maybe that was to keep him safe because Tao was a rather territorial dog and probably wouldn’t be a fan of another male dog around.

But, at any rate, Lucky was so precious and sweet! He, just like the other dogs, desired attention and to be petted. So, he would get a little jealous when we were petting Lulu, Tao, or Happy, and would bark at us until we went over to him and played with him.

Lucky as a puppy when he first arrived

All of our dogs were incredibly loving and changed the stigma I had about wild dogs. They also helped in showing me that, although Thailand holds some of the kindest people, Thailand holds some of the kindest dogs, too!

A video of Lulu, Happy, Tao, and Lucky, who is barking in the background for attention!

What is your experience with wild dogs abroad?

Pork Larb with White Rice

This is one of those dishes that I’m profoundly disappointed in myself for not discovering earlier.

During our visa run to Laos in January, Matt and I went to the restaurant in the lobby of our hotel for dinner. While flipping through the menu, we found that there was an extensive amount of Thai food options, but considering we were in Laos, we wanted to try a Laotian dish. After flipping through some more, we found “larb,” which, according to the menu, was a popular Laotian dish. Exactly what we were looking for!

We ordered it and weren’t quite sure of what to expect when they brought it out to us. But, when they finally did and we took a bite out of it, we were astonished at the amazing flavor! It was spicy (I’m not a huge spicy fan, but it was somehow perfect here) with chilies, ground pork, fried basil, garlic, and white rice. Sounds simple, but it was packed with flavor.

The only downfall of this flavorful meal was that it was a small portion. However, that’s how Thailand’s portions are as well, so we were used to it by then…kindof. We still wanted more!

Fortunately, after returning to Thailand, Matt and I found larb on the menus of a few other places in which we ate! It was a wonderful discovery and was just as delicious as this larb! I hope I am able to try this again some day soon. But, I hope that you are able to try it for yourself some day sooner!