with her left hand, the waitress is holding the beer i just ordered as she carries it to my table. with her right hand, however, she is openly inching her finger so far up her nose that i'm afraid she'll scratch her own brain. she's just a few feet before she makes it to our table when she pulls something sizable out and wipes it on the table cloth, just as she sets down my beer (25 cents, the cheapest yet!).
this is customer service in vietnam. if you can get a waitress to come to your table, and that's a big if, she'll make you wish you'd never set foot in her place of work. it sometimes feels like they're yelling at us. thank god the food's great, and we could care less about who brings it to us.


we're in hue now. hue is great, so far. we've only been here for less than a day, but we're enjoying it immensely. we took a walk to see the sights and we're followed by a pesty cyclo driver, looking to take us on a tour through the old city. a cyclo, by the way, is a cycle-rickshaw seen all over in vietnam. we tried to explain that we didn't want the tour, that we were actually out for the exercise, but he persisted and we caved. the catch was, though, that while he borrowed a friend's bike, i took the driver's seat and pedaled ashley around from monument to monument. the amount of attention we received was, honestly, a little embarrassing, but still too good to give up. people gawked it us like as though we were monkeys pedaling a bicycle around. lots of hellos, and lots of waves kept us both giggling like morons for hours.
tomorrow we're taking a riverboat tour that our hotel staff insists is "always terrible." that alone has us interested. we'll be sure to let you know.

before hue, we were in hoi an, a very charming town that, for the first time, really let us know that we were in vietnam. the streets are narrow, and filled with old moss covered rooftops, and teak buildings with hanging lanterns. it was so uniquely vietnamese, and yet so saturated with tour groups that it has the vague feel of a movie set, but not so much that we didn't enjoy ourselves. we had our best meal in weeks, which is saying a lot, and even found some tolerable ice cream. last night we went to a performance of traditional vietnamese music and dance that we both really liked, and before that, visited some ruins nestled into nearby misty mountains. it is a testament to the spectacle of angkor wat that we were largely unimpressed by this particular set of mysterious jungle ruins. we're obnoxious, i know, but ruined by angkor wat.

on an unrelated note, i think it's worth mentioning that ashley can now see a rat or giant cockroach in the street without hardly a flinch. we spent five minutes on the street last night cheering on a lap dog as it chased a cockroach aound in circles. it was good fun.

i think that's all i've got, for now. if we don't get a chance, happy thanksgiving to everyone who reads this. i think we've figured out our phone, so we will hopefully be talking to many of you soon.

i don't really have much to say. nha trang has turned out to be a little disappointing, or at least it's weather has. four days in a beach town and four days of rain. bummer. there were two highlights, though:
1. we found a restaurant that serves really good ice cream. it may not sound like much to you, but i've been in withdrawal for two and a half months and have come to fully appreciate the value of a quality scoop.
2. we went to some thermal springs and mud baths today. not really a great experience, but a fine one when you consider highlight number one. basically, you sit in a big tub, and a pipe squirts soupy tepid mud into it. it was actually pretty disgusting, but a new experience nonetheless.
with so little to report, you may wonder why i'm writing at all, and the answer, dear readers, is to kill time until we get on a bus. this entry is more for me than it is for you. the bus will whisk us north, just a short 12 hours, to hoi an. god help us, the weather will be nicer, because if ashley and i have to play one more game of gin rummy, one of us will likely snap.
we have a phone now, as well. not sure it works, but if you're feeling lonely, give it a try. the number is: 01265420385, and i think the country is 84. we're having a tough time making outgoing calls, so the ball's in your court.
and that's that. hope to hear from you.

after two and a half weeks in cambodia, this is what we've learned:
1. the food is great, though you can't be positive when you order beef or pork that you wont get dog. not since jalisco's on north avenue have i been at such risk of eating dubious meat.
2. it's the slumber party capital of asia. the women all wear matching pajama sets at all times of the day and the men either get 20 hours of sleep a day, or they are nocturnal. there should be a hammock on the cambodian flag.
3. it's a great country that doesn't require more than two weeks to visit.
we did next to nothing for our last few days. kampot is famous for... can i get a drumroll... pepper. i do like pepper, on cottage cheese, on potato salad... can't get enough of it. but i draw the line at visiting a pepper farm. i just don't care that much. so in lieu of a visit to a pepper farm, we took a few hikes, spent a day on an island reading under palm trees, and ate a lot of delicious seafood. it was all quite nice.
on a side note, ashley and i have developed a pastime as we hike, or bike, or sit silently in the sun, where we create detailed itineraries throughout southeast asia for everyone we know. so, odds are, if you're reading this blog we have a very specific trip charted out for you. feel free to ask, that's why we're here.
but back to cambodia. glad we did it, glad we're done. if you ever have a chance to make it to angkor wat, it isn't to be missed. other than that, i wouldn't go out of my way to see cambodia. you can always eat dog at home.
which brings us to vietnam. the man in the black pajamas, eyeball to eyeball. we made it to ho chi minh city/ saigon last night. it is supersaturated with people to a degree that gives delhi a run for it's money. vietnam has about 86 million people, i'm told, and so far i think we've seen most of them. there are apparently 6 million people living in the city, and 3 million motorbikes making pedestrian street crossings an exhilarating and terrifying endeavor. but aside from the congestion, i like it here so far. it's very metropolitan, as far as southeast asia goes, and we've met some great people with whom we can while away our nights over dirt cheap beer. tonight will be our second and final night, before we make our way to na trang, a coastal city with activities galore. our current itinerary has us going from na trang to hoi an, then hue, and then up to hanoi where we meet seth for thanksgiving and rock climbling, before kevin arrives on the 1st, and nicole on the 3rd. ashley and i are both very fired up to see people from home, in vietnam of all places.
and what else...
oh... we finally got around to eating durian fruit, a notoriously noxious fruit incredibly popular with the locals, that to most foreigners, smells too much like rotten meat to enjoy. we liked it. it does smell unpleasant; vomitous, even, but there's just something about the way it tastes that lets you forget the overpowering stench of garbage it emits. we have a plan to make a guacamole-like spread from it that we hope will revolutionize popular perspective on this misunderstood fruit.
and that may be it. i could bore everyone with tales of our border crossing, but i won't. the road was bumpy, we crossed the border, and that's all you need to know.
one last thing... we love getting comments on the blog. i never respond to them, because after checking hotmail and facebook messages, i just don't have it in me, but for those of you who have been doing it, please keep it up. i found chris langenkamp's recent comparison of a mythical hindu beast to marquette high school legend kevin "stobar" perry especially rewarding (see photo below), but nicole's and martha's regular contributions are equally appreciated. kudos to you all.

been a while. everything seems to move a little slower in cambodia, and i suppose that includes internet connections. the biggest adventure we've had since i last wrote has been our visit to angkor wat. for those of you who don't know, or don't watch the amazing race, angkor wat is a massive complex of temples built between the 7th and 14th century by the kmhers. the main temple itself is the largest religious structure in the world, but there are dozens of enormous temples scattered around, most of which have been reclaimed by the jungle, and tourists. we spent three days there total, the first two cruising around on bikes, and the last in a tuk-tuk. i know this is a cop out, but it seems impossible for me to give any kind of description of this place without doing it a disservice. just imagine the opening scene in raiders of the lost arc, but replace the angry natives with locals selling postcards and orange sodas. or think the shire, but with monkeys instead of hobbits. anyhow, just look at the pictures. we took loads.
on our third and final day we opted for the tuk-tuk so that we could make it to the main temple to watch the sunrise, and stay late to watch the sunset. the first part didn't pan out as hoped since the morning was overcast and we didnt see the sun until noon, but the sunset was fantastic. about two hundred people gather on top of a mountain temple that overlooks the whole park, and we were the only ones with enough foresight to bring a bottle of wine. it was a little bizarre when the sun went down, to watch throngs of people feverishly photograph the sun set as though it doesn't happen in their own country. i cant imagine coming home from a trip and having anyone i know showing a genuine interest in wanting to see photos i took of the sun.
anyhow...
after angkor wat we made our way back to pnomh penh to watch the election results. needless to say we were very excited, almost in disbelief, and even still, feel a little bit like it can't possibly be real. it's been such a long road under george bush that i've forgotten what it feels like to have a president that doesn't seem somewhat evil. we celebrated with about 200 other americans at a party put on by "democrats abroad"but called it an early night so we could wake up and make it to sihanoukeville, our current location.
sihanoukeville doesn't have a whole lot going on. it's on the beach, the water's warm, and the seafood is dirt cheap, but we need activities, and here there are none. the most interesting report we have from here happened yesterday when we were walking home from the beach, and out on the street, cooking on a huge barbeque spit, was a dog. it was unpleasant and i will be avoiding all red meat for the rest of our time in cambodia.
tomorrow i think we'll head to kampot, a city that reportedly has less going on than sihanoukeville, and then onto kep, which is even slower than kampot. we're just trying to run out the clock until we can get to vietnam.