Chiang Mai, Thailand

Mousa: Very good. It says, 'May God deliver us from the venom of the Cobra, teeth of the tiger, and the vengeance of the Afghan.' Understand what this means?
Rambo: That you guys don't take any shit?
Mousa: Yes... something like this.

(I've never seen the movie but now Trav has me fascinated with it)

We arrived into Thailand late Friday afternoon. My favorite thing about this competition is that it takes you to places that you would never know to go on your own. I have wanted to dive in Thailand for years but until we landed, I had never heard of the second largest city in Thailand, Chang Mai, We stayed at the Shangri-la. Although it was the nicest hotel I have ever been,  in it was nearly empty. There has been some recent shootings and rallies in Thailand and although the problems weren’t near Chang Mai, I guess it scared off visitors. The same thing happened to the resorts in Mexico during the swine flu scare. In my world a tiny risk of illness or political violence is a fine swap for a luxury hotel to yourself.


The first afternoon we were exhausted and had to talk each other into leaving the hotel for a food scavenge. Dinner perked us up enough to wander into to one of the many spas on the street (spas in Chang Mai are like Starbucks in NYC). A 30 minute foot massage, 30 minute scalp massage and an hour and half full body massage later (all for a grand total of $38usd for both of us), we decided we really liked Thailand.

We wandered around the night market which was crowded and hot but friendly, bright, cheery and cheap. Extremely cheap. We bought wooden and silk lanterns, knives, necklaces, beautiful paintings of Asia, dozens of hand painted postcards…. And I don’t think either of us spent over $50.

On Saturday, we went to a tiger sanctuary. You can actually go in and play with tigers—babies and adults. When traveling internationally it’s hard to ditch that built in American sense of “if it wasn't safe I’m sure they wouldn't let me do it” security but I managed to right about the time I found myself petting a 600 pound tiger. Although I was a nervous wreck, it was one of the coolest things I have ever done. Being so close to something that massive and seeing the huge paws and long tail, was incredible. Travis was much more relaxed about this than me. In the 15 minutes we were there he kept me from stepping on a tiger’s tail and from leaning into an electric fence. Will someone remind me about this the next time he makes me mad? As he for sure deserves a few passes.

After this we knocked out one of the Great Escape scavenges and went to Mae Sa Valley to see snake charmers with the king cobras. Since we first saw this scavenge on the list Trav had been singing a line from Rambo 4 “ay ay king cobra… ay ya king cobra” in a deep Thai accent. It turned out this was the exact place that part of the movie was filmed and his impression was dead on. When we arrived a young guy was charming a huge king cobra- it was impressive. At some point he put it around my neck (I’m not really sure what happened as my mind tends to go blank when in panic mode but what I do know is there are now several photographs of me with this thing around me). As all of this was happening a woman was rattling off in broken English accent “ay ya king cobra, ay ya king cobra, be careful very poisonous, be careful” The whole thing was madly impressive and ended with a little boy 4 year old boy charming 3 snakes. This made me cry (being away from my child has turned m ridiculously emotional). When the show was finished, I gave the little boy a squishy toy ball I had in my backpack. Travis found this amusing-- “he gets to play with snakes… he doesn’t want your stupid ball”. A valid point.


While we were in the Mae Sa Valley went to see the “long neck people”. The villagers themselves were very beautiful but we both found the experience disturbing. The entrance to their village has a small ticket counter where you pay a $10 admission to wander around and “view” these people in their natural life setting. A very rustic lifestyle with no water or electricity (yet there was a “tourist only" running water bathroom near the ticketbooth). Lots of children and babies, all dirty and in rags. We both felt guilty and attempted to lessen that by buying a ton of stuff from the villagers.



The last crazy thing we did Saturday was visit a fish spa. You soak your feet into an aquarium of small fish that eat the dead skin off your feet and this somehow improve your circulation. It was neat but it was creepy…. I had to will myself to keep my feet in there the entire 30 minutes. Trav, however loved it (?). Ha, even though there were a ton of other spots in the spa, they sat us right in the window to do this. So for 30 minutes other tourists and kids were walking by and pointing at us, laughing and taking pictures…. Karma I suppose for our visit to the Long Neck Village.

Thailand was our last stop on this trip. Bill, the event director took us to dinner at an extremely nice restaurant for our last night. Thai food is amazing. Thai food is spicy.

It has been one of the most amazing experiences we have ever had and we met some of the most fantastically interesting and fun people (both in the countries we visited and competing with us). The competition itself is much harder than I thought it would be—mentally and physically exhausting. Aside from Trav and I (who remained in last place for our 10 days) the competition is very close. I’m interested to see who will win.

I’m in my 32nd hour of traveling home and currently on a redeye out of LA. I’m jonsing to see my baby and kiss her fat little cheeks.

Laos

We arrived into Laos Thursday night? it’s very easy to lose track of time on this trip and I asked four other participants of today’s date and got three different answers. It’s the first time I have landed into a city that I didn’t know the name of (today will be the second). The airport was smaller than my house and we deboarded the plane directly onto the runway. The city turned out to be Luang Prabang. Hot. Tropical. My first impression of it was a town that belonged on a beach. It’s on the Mekong river actually. It was the 2nd day of the New Moon New Year 2553 3 day celebration.

Friday we woke up and did a bonus scavenge that took us one hour down the Mekong river to some caves. Flocks of Laotians were there to celebrate the new year and worship by going into the caves to pour water on the budhas that rest there. On the way back we spotted an elephant on the banks and knocked out a second scavenge when our boat driver convinced the owner to let us ride it. Much like a skateboard, 7 foot men have no business on an elephant. I’m pretty sure ours was pissed so we cut our hour ride down to 15 minutes. They did let Travis drive the elephant though. Ha--- what I thought was a little boy guided the elephant- I was guessing 7 or 8. When our tour ended, on top of the tip I gave him a lollipop and one of the beanie babies I carry around in my backpack for the kids here. It turned out he was 17. Ha.


The New Moon New Year is celebrated in Laos with a water festival. Everyone lines the streets with buckets of water to toss on anyone and everyone (policemen, monks, old woman….. no one is spared). Toddlers line the streets with cups of water and plastic water guns while older children and adults have huge buckets to work with. After changing clothes twice I attempted to bribe a 3 year old girl who was baring a huge waterrifle around her chest, with some of the candy I had into letting me remain dry. She shook her head no to the candy and drenched me- not even breaking a smile. I miss Lyric.


Ontop of the water, people put paint and grease on their hands and run smearing people’s back and faces with it. My back is covered in black grease that has washed off only enough to appear like a bad bruise. I look as though I’ve been beaten. Travis was wet from noon to near sunset with what he later informed me was water people threw from the gutter. I will be slipping a Cipro into his drink today.


In the late afternoon it rained so hard that the entire village shut down (how ironic that rain shut down the waterfestival). When it cleared up enough to see we hiked up to a huge mountain considered by the Laotians to be sacred. At top was a small temple where the monks pray at sunset. Monks in Laos really weren’t what I expected. We talked to several in town. They wear orange rags with bare feet and shaved heads but most of them were just boys---- 13 or 14. And although they did seem a bit…sacred (?) They also just seemed like 13 year old boys to me. They didn’t dump water or have waterguns but they took great pleasure in filling up the buckets for people. Note: you can’t touch a monk (I learned this after sticking my hand out to shake ones hand yesterday).


Even though Laos was the poorest country I have ever been to—the people seemed very happy and the city was beautiful. Every few blocks an ornate temple or a stairrailing shaped like a dragon. This morning we visited an orphanage to hand out basketball t-shirts, books and beanie babies. The children were a bit timid and very grateful. The orphanage was the cleanest and appeared to be the most well ran I have ever seen. SOS orphanages They run them all over the world. If you ever have a chance to donate- do--- as for sure every penny seems to be spent the right way.



We have just landed into Thailand. I can’t recall the city. It’s bigger than Luang Prabang but smaller than Hanoi

Hanoi: Paradise Found (vehicular anarchy aside)

We arrived Tuesday night into Hanoi. It reminds me of Managua. A tropical big city in a third world country. People congregate on the edge of the road playing cards and hanging out. I imagine that houses are small crowded and hot so people stay outside as much as possible. One the more simple scavenges for Vietnam was to have a cabbie take you to a restaurant of his choice. I didn’t realize what a leap of faith this was until we ended up at a very nice restaurant right next door to a restaurant that offered an 8 course meal of Thit Cho . Thit Cho? Dog. I ordered vegetarian spring rolls just to be on the safe side (and they were phenomenal).

Wednesday we took a 3 hour cab ride to Ha Long Bay (a bonus scavenge involving water…. SO up our alley). This taxi ride was reeeeeeeeediculous.. Pedestrians and livestock lined the shoulders of the roads while scooters, military trucks, busses and our cab competed for the one lane. After the 3rd time our driver played a game of chicken with a bus I demanded that we pull over where I would then play a game of chicken with Travis --refusing to go anywhere until he helped me figure out how to tell the cab driver to cool it on the passing (i lost).

About 10 miles from the HaLong Bay a man on a motorbike began to follow our car. It was a weird interaction where we saw him see us at a stopsign and then hop on his bike and follow us. When we got out at the Bay port the weird guy remained about 20 feet back from us. We went into a store… he waited… we went to the bathroom…. He waited. A small scene eventually occurred as Trav called the guy out… I’m still not sure what the deal was….maybe it was innocent enough and he was scouting for his boat renting friend OR maybe he was trying to rob us…. OR… maybe he was planning to slit Trav’s throat and sell me into the sex slave market (It’s going to be years before female travelers recover from that damn Liam Neeson movie). Our language barrier is too thick for us to ever know but Trav got rid of him easily enough.

Putting up with Trav’s occasional moodiness is a small price to pay for the safety blanket he puts on me traveling and I (literally) would not feel safe crossing the street in Vietnam without him.

Cab ride and weird guy incident aside… Hong Long Bay was amazing. We rented what’s called a “junk” for 2 million Vietnam Dong (the denominations of money in Vietnam are huge… 2 million dong is about $100usd). The junk was about 60 feet with an upstairs and downstairs and came complete staff to drive the boat, cook and serve drink ($100 usd goes a long way here). We cruised the bay for a couple of hours. We stopped at a floating fish market to buy lunch. Trav picked out obscure fish for us while I played with the market owner’s 3 year old son. If you ever want to befriend a toddler… I suggest a glow stick. In the 10 minutes we were there I watched him almost fall in the water twice, cry twice and giggle endlessly over the glow stick and an oreo. Things may be way different in Asia… but toddlers are universally the same (and endlessly entertaining to me).  We spent the rest of the day seeing the caves along the bay and just chilling on the water. We only got the points for the one bonus scavenge on Wednesday as we spent the whole day there.... but it was my favorite day yet

We woke up very early this morning and “scavenged” all around Hanoi. Very cool clues that led us to the Hanoi Hilton (where POW prison where John McCain was held for 5 years during the war) and other interesting sites. The food in Vietnam is incredible (TUDU worthy Dori!) although we were pretty conservative with what we ordered (the dog restaurant got me a bit creeped out). We passed on the points for the food scavenge that included watching as a woman chopped up a live snake and plopped it’s heart on a plate for you to eat while mixing the blood with a shot of whisky (it supposedly helps with fertility and virility) but some of the other teams didn’t. If I haven’t mentioned this before…. All the Littlepage women (and there are 3 generations in this competition) are badasses.

I’m currently on a tiny tiny prop plane on my way to Laos. I’m quite thrilled to be going there--- as the waterfestival is currently going on (I believe this is a bit like New Year but with water rather than fireworks). I will be more thrilled when I’m off this tiny plane. Zoe’s 13 year old niece is sitting beside me. Lily is an old soul. Before we took off she patted my knee and told me that I’m much safer in this plane than I was on the streets of Hanoi. True Enough. xoxo

on way to Hanoi

Unless the food in Vietnam is dramatically better than the food in Hong Kong, I’m so going to lose ten pounds during this trip. Our food scavenges for charcoal cake and spoiled brought back to life eggs aside, the food in Hong kong? Eh. Chinese Food in America is severely westernized as are my taste buds. Everything we ate here tasted ok but it was all a lot oiler and in general…. squishier than anything I’m used to (Dori- Sarah would starve before she put any of this in her mouth). Plus they leave the heads on things that I’m normally used to eating sans a face staring back at me (chicken, pig, fish). I’ve been out of zone bars for 4 days. Gr.




I really enjoyed being in Hong Kong though. 2 days was the perfect amount of time and thanks to all our crazy scavenges I’m confident I saw the whole city. Each night at 8pm they have a light show consisting of all the skyline buildings and laser lights. Very cool. A huge crowd gathers on the bay to watch it--- most of them with glow sticks waving (which is hysterical).

Hong Kong

One of my favorite things about this competition is that it takes you places you would not necessarily go on your own. Hong Kong is cool. It's a big city-a little dirty-very crowded. We arrived Sunday --- and went to "scavenging" I'm not as good at this as I thought I would be. I'm a great traveler and good with riddles and such ... but I am terrible with directions. Terrible. After living in Pensacola for 15 years I still get lost a few times a month. Thankfully Travis is a navigational expert --- so my big role thus far in this has been to scope out the nice strangers to help us figure out the clues and eat the god awful food challenges (I'm not a squimish eater but I still found myself gagging and spitting food onto the street twice yesterday) while Trav maps out where we should go. It's funny because he has taken to treating me a bit like I treat Lyric walking around.  He is constantly having to grab my arm to keep me from walking the wrong way or into traffic. Much like NYC the key to Hong Kong is mastering the Subways (plus communicating with a cabbie here? Not so easy).



I'm very impressed with the kindness of the people in Hong Kong. Yesterday a 17 year old high school student sat in Starbucks (if only finding good coffee were a scavenge ...) with us for an hour and helped us figure out our clues. He kept apologizing for his English being a bit broken. My goal is for Lyric to be as kind and intelligent as this boy when she's a teenager.


We have done so much in the last two days. Yesterday while looking for a 1000 year old egg we passed a Buddhist prayer temple. We went in and lit incense and wrote a prayer note for the health of our children. I got chill bumps as the monks hit a big bell and chanted prayers for our prayers. It was one of my favorite things so far.


The competition is much physically harder than I thought it would be ... after being out and about for 5 hours yesterday I crashed (we forgot to eat lunch and my blood sugar was 0). We took a few hour break to swim at the hotel ( and eat cookies!). I'm very impressed with how hard the other teams went. Rainey and Zoe as well as Heidi and Lily went straight from 8am-10pm yesterday-no breaks ... hardcore


! I miss my baby but luckily my family knows how to handle me and sends hour by hour updates "Lyric ate applesauce, then laughed with Janey-then she took a 2 ½ hour nap wearing her pink pig pjs ...." Trav said she needs a twitter account (ha). I'm still a little jetlagged so although I have a lot to write about-I don't have any ability to do so clearly ... So ... I will end this here. We leave for Vietnam in a few hours ... I'm stoked

Saturday is my least favorite day of the week anyway

I’m on a 16 hour flight to Hong Kong. We left San Fran at 1:20am Saturday morning and will arrive into Hong Kong Sunday at 6:30am.  So no Saturday. Ha. Cool.  After much ado (read: whining) we talked our way last minute into bulkhead seats. Trav is on my left passed out ( the sweet seat was scored after he decided the only way he could manage such a long flight was to drink himself into an oblivion). On my right is Juan. Juan is a little person (seriously) who I just met when he pointed out to me that he could stretch his legs completely out and prop his feet on the wall in front of us while Travis’s knees are touching it He ended this with a “sucks to be him”. I like Juan a lot.

Great Escape consists of 7 teams of 2. Everyone is wildly interesting and this makes me happy. When we land in Hong Kong we will be given a book of “scavenges”. We have to figure out what each scavenge is telling us to do (some are written like riddles) and then decide how to go about it. Each one is worth a varying amount of points based on its difficulty. It would be impossible to do all of them so the trick appears to be to find what you can do (and what you want to do) and then map out where each one is. This has been Rainey and Zoe’s (winning) strategy. You can’t use any internet. Sadly, my ingenious is directly linked to the internet and I’m no good with maps. Travis is really going to have to pull the weight for our team.

I didn’t take many pictures in San Fran and although I’m dying to take a picture of the oddity that is this airplane row I’m currently in the middle of….I’m not. But brace yourself Hong Kong… for me and my big camera!, We are visiting an orphanage on our trip and we wanted to bring toys for them without bringing an extra bag. Always the packing wizard (especially for someone that hates to travel) my mother got them all into one of those vacspace bags (as seen on TV!) So here you have 40 beanie babies and 10 nerf footballs. No joke. It’s heavy but it’s as flat as a Sunday newspaper. Here’s hoping beanie babies fluff well.

“ma’m, you’re not having a seizure or anything are you?”

- The 19 year old navy kid next to me on my hopper flight from Pensacola to Houston tonight.

I’m afraid of flying. Extremely. I gasp, I shake (prompting the kid’s concern) and at times cry. A true testament to my love of travel (and my job for that matter) is that I suck it up and get on a plane several times a month. I know it’s an irrational fear but…. Those are the worst. I do better when I’m on a plane with someone I know --- then I can rationalize, if they aren’t freaking out, things are fine. This POA is blown to hell however, when traveling with Melissa, who shares my fear. Together we turn into a bad Laurel and Hardy routine (I gasp over nothing, she screams because I gasped …. things decline from there). This is the only solace I take in her not coming on this big adventure with me.

Travis always jokes that my flying phobia is the reason we met. We met 9 years ago when I sat next to him on a flight from NYC to Houston. I asked him to tell me about the magazine he was reading, explaining I needed someone to take my mind off the flight. He thought it was a pick up line (it wasn’t). He responded that he was only looking at the pictures and that he was excited to go to Houston because there are Whataburgers there. I thought he was an idiot (he wasn’t).
Not usually an overly-emotional girl, this flight marks the 2nd time I have cried in two hours. The first time was in the airport when the lady checking me in at Continental asked me where my other half was. I assumed she meant Lyric (who I had just left bawling in the car with my parents minutes earlier) and burst into tears. As it turned out she meant Rainey. Note: the 60 something year old Continental clerk is obsessed with my boss. I had forgotten. I wiped my tears, answered her 20 questions about Rainey’s whereabouts (and more importantly his return!) and promptly called my mother to tell her (for the 100th time) to keep my child away from the pool while I’m gone. This may be the first time in my life that my mother has told me to stop calling her. Fair enough.

The competition starts tomorrow. We arrive into San Fran tonight and then at some point tomorrow we are contacted and told we have two hours to get to the airport and go to (insert random unknown for now country). I’m stoked! I will be more stoked when I’m off this small bouncy plane.

Blogging, by definition, is self indulgent and although I enjoy it, I always feel self conscious doing it. I promised someone I would blog every day of my trip and it is currently taking my mind off this one flight I’m on sans my 7-foot, Whataburger loving man. So thank you for reading my indulgences… and don’t judge me too harshly for my grammatical errors (Bubba…. Erik…. David…this means you)!.
xo
April