Day 23: Kuala Lumpur Day 3

Again the cloud bed sucked us in and wouldn't allow us to get up when our alarm went off at 7:45 a.m. Damn you, awesome bed!

We got showered and had grand plans to go to another food court of "street" food stalls for lunch, but just as we were headed out the door Marv threw his hands up in the air and declared, "I can't take any more of this Asian food!" I thought he was kidding but he most certainly was not. The thought of more Asian was majorly unappetizing, for both of us.

So, we went to the mall next door and went to Burger King.

Yes people, I flew 13 time zones from home to eat at Burger King.

And it felt SO good! I have eaten about 5 Western meals since we've been on this journey, but Marv has only had 1. A Whopper with onion rings was just what the doctor ordered. Plus, they had free wifi! The Mandarin Oriental makes you pay for internet access (5 stars my eye) but Burger King is free. That's points off my hotel awesomeness-o-meter. Our laptop battery was all but dead so I didn't get to enjoy too much free wifi, but I would like to shout out to BK for being in the 21st century, and ask the Mandarin Oriental to get a clue.

As Marv is a bird nerd some might consider me a shark nerd. Ergo, the nearby aquarium was a must-see for us. The place was swarming with school children (BOO) but there were some super cool fish and sharks to see. Places like this make me sad for my grandchildren, who might not have ANY fish or aquatic life to see, much less exotic ones like this.

The Petronas Towers, the largest twin towers in the world at 88 stories, have an
observation deck that you can look out from onto the city. Tickets to get up there are free but the catch is you have to get there early to snag them. Since we weren't out of bed anywhere near "early" we didn't even try to get tickets for this. Which is fine, since our hotel room has a near identical view (though not panoramic). This is the view from our hotel of their observation deck.

So we saved our panoramic viewing for the KL Tower, the 4th largest telecommunications tower in the world. I suspect this view was better, anyways, since it was higher and had a guided audio tour that showed you what you were looking at through each window. I don't know if I've ever been so high up anywhere before, and it was a clear enough day to see for miles and miles around.

Once we got out of the KL Tower (by elevator, thank God) we decided to skip the nonsensical public transit system and walk to Merdeka Square instead. This is a little park that was erected to celebrate Malaysian independence from Britain in the late 50's. There were nifty old colonial buildings all around it and a giant mosque next door. The loudspeaker was calling out for prayers while we were there. Allahu akbar!

We had had enough touristing for the day so we headed back to the hotel and stopped at a grocery store for some snacks along the way. One thing I love about grocery stores here is their abundance of ready made sushi. So we got some sushi snacks and brought them back to the hotel room for some hardcore eating. This is the first sushi I've had in a month so I can't say I'm sick of ALL Asian food.

Marv has read a lot about different Ramadan bazaars that set up shop after sunset to allow Muslims to break their daily fast and do some hardcore binge eating. We enjoy hardcore binge eating so we thought we'd go to one and join in the fun.

Um...not so much.

The food was way, way, WAY too "authentic" for us, with miles of unrefrigerated food lined out on folding tables. Rice was served in a big beverage cooler and people served themselves by scooping it out with the bowl they were using. For the sake of not getting amoebic dysentery we took a look around and headed right back where we came from to eat. I can't imagine what would have happened to our intestines had we decided to eat that stuff. It was NOT sanitary.

Back at our go-to mall we ate at Nando's, an "upscale" chicken joint that our new British friends had raved about. We were more than happy to eat 2 Western meals in one day.

Just the thought of Asian food right now = BARF!

Day 22: Kuala Lumpur Day 2

We set our alarm for 7:45 a.m. but the cloud bed conspired against us and wouldn't allow us to leave until 11. This bed is glorious! Every minute spent in it is a minute NOT wasted.

A touristy hop-on, hop-off bus conveniently had a stop right outside our hotel, and having luck with these in the past, thought it would be a wise investment to drop 38 ringget (12 USD) per person for a day of transport and touristing. What we didn't know is that one of their buses was broken down so there was a grand total of 2 tourist buses circling the entire city. We had to wait ridiculous amounts of time for the next bus to pick us up. Boo!

One of the first stops on the tour dropped us off at another mall food court, or "heritage food village" as they call it. This time we each made it through 2.5 meals before throwing in the towel. Trust me, there ain't no Panda Express at these food courts. The place was absolutely packed with locals eating different types of cuisine around lunch time.

We visited a grocery store which was disproportionately fun for me. They had so much American stuff! Campbell's soup, Keebler cookies and Ruffles chips to name a few. I saw stuff that I had forgotten even existed. I could really see myself living here someday, in part because of the availability of all these sweet American goods!

Our next stop on the bus was Chinatown, which had stalls and stalls of counterfeit designer goods, mostly handbags. We didn't stay long because we knew we had to make the next bus otherwise we'd be waiting quite a while for the next one. We stopped at the royal palace, but tourists aren't allowed onto the grounds so we could only look at it through the gates.

This isn't common knowledge but Marv is a huge bird nerd. Meaning his interest in birds is borderline unhealthy. Thus, when I saw that the KL Bird Park was one of the bus stops I knew I had no choice but to go to the "open air aviary". That means it's a giant open park with nets high above it, which allows the birds to fly around freely. We even made one of the twice-daily bird shows, where birds did tricks to entertain the crowd. This is a cool picture of a bird flying through a hoop, dangerously close to us. I was terrified I'd get crapped on at some point, luckily all the pooping I saw was done on the ground.

At this point we were ready to get back on the tour bus and go back to our hotel but traffic was at an absolute stand still, it would have taken us well over an hour to get back to the area of town where we needed to be. So the minute we saw a public transit station we jumped ship and got on there instead. It was packed in there because people were heading for Friday evening prayers but at least we got back in a reasonable amount of time. That tourist bus was a gigantic bust for the amount we paid.

Marv had read about a very popular-with-the-locals-and-tourists alike restaurant, Madam Kwans, that happened to be next to our hotel so we stopped by there on the way home to make reservations for later that evening. With all the cheap, good "street" stall food available we figure we'll hit up only one real restaurant during our stay.

By the time dinner rolled around I was going through major red wine withdrawals. It's been at least 3 weeks since I've had any, and I love my red wine (all wine, really) passionately. When we got to the restaurant and saw only beer on the menu, and no wine on any tables, I was ready to suck the alcohol out of my stick of deodorant. I've had tons of beer on this holiday but it's just not cutting it anymore. I was BEYOND thrilled when they did have a wine menu, and immediately cracked into my bottle of Cabernet Merlot as soon as it hit the table. It was SO GOOD!

Marv insisted we order the fish head curry, which is a main course to be shared between 2-3 people. And let's be honest, we have the appetite of at least 4 people. I am a fish lover but was leery about the "head" part. Thankfully it came with a lot more fish meat than just a creepy head. It was really good, as were the chicken and beef satay with peanut sauce, which is another popular local delicacy we had to try. But the shining star of the meal for me was the wine. I drank 3/4 of it and would have easily drank double that given the chance. I love my wine!

After dinner we went back to the cloud bed in our hotel room to rest up for an early start tomorrow. Hopefully for real this time.

Day 20: Hanoi Day 2

Since last night was a late one, and we didn't care to get up and see the body of Ho Chi Minh, we slept until 11 a.m. I don't feel the slightest bit guilty about this, as leisurely days like this have made it possible for me to NOT be an exhausted mess by this point - nearly 3 weeks into the tour.

After lunch Marv and several guys set out on a mission: To buy the ugliest shirt money could buy. Clothes are readily available in tons of small stores and markets and MAN are some of them hedious. I don't know who buys these heinous clothes since people on the street are dressed perfectly normal. Everybody was encouraged to participate in the ugly shirt competition, and the winner would get free drinks for the night.

Marv ran in to one very large obstacle when searching for a shirt to wear: He is roughly 3x larger than the average Vietnamese man. Their clothes are TINY so his pickin's were slim. This is the reason that I didn't participate in the competition. Clothes for women are even smaller than mens, so there's not a chance in hell I could find a single shirt to fit me in all of Hanoi (much less an ugly one).

Marv was finding little success and the closing time was nearing for the only tourist attraction I wanted to visit, Hao Lo prison, a.k.a. the "Hanoi Hilton". So he paused his quest and we set off for the prison. We asked the tourist information office how to get there and had to explain that, no, we were not looking for the actual Hilton hotel. Having learned our lesson last night about taxis we haggled with the driver, who initially wanted more than double what was reasonable. It seems that the most effective tactic is to name the price you're willing to pay and, if they don't accept it, move on to the next one. Usually they'll fold and accept what you offer.

The Hao Lo prison had been used since the 19th century to house Vietnamese people who fought against France's invasion. Of course I didn't know this, and only knew that it had been used to house American POW's during the Vietnam war.

The propaganda machine was back in full force, as you can see here this placard says that the American prisoners were treated amazingly well and had a super awesome time during their incarceration. Yeah, and the name Hanoi Hilton is literal, not ironic.

A face that kept popping up in pictures was a young John McCain, who, I would like to declare, was totally hot back in the day. They even had his jumpsuit and parachute on display that he was wearing when he was captured. He was in his 20's when he was at this prison and his hair turned white during his time tere. Also, he can't raise his arms up since they were broken there and he didn't receive proper medical attention.

I learned that most, if not all, American POW's were pilots that were shot down over North Vietnam. I'm glad I took the time to go and, in a way, pay respects to those who served (voluntarily or not). I really haven't done too much war tourism, but Vietnam isn't all about the "American war" so I think I've seen a decent amount.

After the museum I was ready for some A/C and relaxation but Marv was still on the war path for an ugly shirt to enter into the competition. I took a taxi alone back to the hotel (price determined in advance, of course) while Marv went back out shopping. And, amazingly, he found one that fit! Here is a group picture of all the competition entries:



This picture doesn't do the ugliness of his shirt justice, as there are various patches with nonsensical English phrases on it, and actual textured paint splatters. This thing cost $5 - not really cheap by any standards.

On our way to dinner (our last as an entire group - boo hoo) we saw a pretty fierce motorbike accident. A cute little dog was trying to cross the street and was playing Frogger to get through the oncoming traffic. A motorbike slammed on its brakes, hard, so it didn't hit the dog and both people riding on it fell off and went flying. Marv swears he saw the motorbike hit the dog but it was nowhere in sight, so it was well enough to run off. The people got up and got back on but we could see one had a bloody face, despite his dinky little helmet. Once again: Traffic in Hanoi is insane!

At dinner we held a secret ballot vote to see who had succeeded in finding the ugliest shirt. The title was neck and neck, with Ass-Tight-Pink-Spandex (on Stefan, 2nd from the right) versus Floral-Mesh-Cut-Outs (on Phil, 4th from the right). The competition was intense, but Phil won by 1 on the very last vote. I think the deal breaker was the fact that one of the floral mesh cut-outs on his shirt perfectly revealed a nipple. Now that's fashion forward!

Here is a picture of me feeling up the spandex "Dolce & Gabbna" shirt, which I'm posting just because it was so obscenely gross yet sexy at the same time. And, for the record, it WAS a mans shirt.

After dinner we went to a so-typically-Asian private karaoke room, which we actually had to book in advance. We only spent an hour there since the beer was so expensive ($2 - we ain't paying that!) but we did have a gay old time singing to the Spice Girls, Britney Spears and ABBA with our very own personal sound system.

Marv & I had to depart for the airport at 6:30 a.m. the next day so it couldn't be a late night for us. The piss warm beers just weren't going down as smooth as they have - refrigeration is not a huge priority here - so after hanging out for a while we said our goodbyes and went to bed.

I am absolutely crushed to say goodbye to these people, a few in particular. I have made some lifelong friends who I cannot wait to see again soon. It hasn't been 24 hours since I last saw them and I miss them terribly.

It's a very sad day for me.

Day 19: Hanoi Day 1

We got to Hanoi about 12:30 and as we headed to lunch Marv and I had to drop off yet another load of laundry. Lucky for us our tour guide knows where it's cheapest (hint: not usually the hotel) so we paid 74,000 dong for 2.5 kilos of laundry. I'd estimate we've spent $15 on laundry so far, and we have been very merciful on our bank muscles. We packed way, way lighter than everybody else so every time we're in a town for more than one night we need to do a load. Let me tell you, nothing is more humbling than hand washing a pair of your own underwear in a sink.

Our group split up for lunch and we followed our tour leader to a very local soup place. The soup, it sounds like it's pronounced "fur ball", was really good since this had the added flavorings of pork wantons, chicken and pieces of liver (which I ate, because I'm a culinary rock star). A huge bowl of filling soup cost just over $1. Again, hot soup on a hot day is insanity to me, but the stuff is tasty.

We met back up with everyone to do the one main touristy thing everybody must do in Hanoi: a water puppet show. We decided to be frugal tourists for once and didn't spring the extra dollar for VIP seats. This wasn't a great idea when we realized the comical amount of legroom provided to the non-VIP audience. Seeing a 6' man crammed into a chair designed for a 4' person is truly a sight to see. The show was nifty but I can't say I understood what story they were trying to tell.

That evening we cabbed it to our restaurant for dinner, and being 16 people we couldn't all fit into one. The taxis were instructed to drop us off at a specific corner, and 2 of the 3 followed each other and let us off (unbeknownst to us) a block away from where we should be. So we spent the next hour running around like chickens with our heads cut off trying to figure out where the hell we were and where the hell the rest of our party was. Finally we were reunited, but this is not our last run in with a taxi that evening.

We had the option of getting up early the next day to view the body of Ho Chi Minh, which is only on display from 8 - 11 a.m. Nobody was particularly interested, so our tour guide was able to come out and par-tay with us for once. We found a club that catered mostly to wealthy Vietnamese and partied well past the official closing time of midnight. Once we left the club we were shushed and shooed away from the door, so I'm sure the club owners have a delicate relationship with the government that wants to shut them for the night at ridiculously early hour.

We hopped in a few cabs back to the hotel, and made the stupid (drunken) mistake of not agreeing on a price beforehand or requesting the driver use the meter. For comparison, our cab ride earlier that night cost 32,000 dong. Once we got back to the hotel the driver wanted over 150,000 dong for the short ride. Two out of the three cabs were trying to swindle us.

Thank God for Amy, our Thai tour leader. No way was she going to let us get blatantly ripped off like that so she made a HUGE stink. She got the front desk staff involved and, at 1:30 a.m. on a quiet street, was screaming at the drivers that people like them make Vietnam look bad and threatened to call the police. In the end we paid each driver 40,000 dong (a perfectly fair price) and told them if they wanted to complain about that - the thieving bastards of course did not - they could wait for the police to come.

A Vietnamese-born friend of mine told me "Don't let people rip you off just because you're white." I'd like to think we white people stood up for ourselves quite well!

Day 18: Halong Bay

We arrived to our destination of Halong Bay at 8:30 a.m. amazingly well rested. We had nothing to do but sleep (and sweat) on the train the night before and the 3 hour pre-dawn bus ride, so we were ready to dive into breakfast.

God smiled upon us and our rooms were available for us shortly after we stuffed our faces. Then came the sweetest moment of my life up to this point: A SHOWER. I am not a long shower taker but I must have scrubbed myself from head to toe for 20 straight minutes. I learned an interesting thing about how human skin works: when you mix sunblock and sweat with dirt and dust it turns into an invisible layer of mud, so when you scratch the skin your fingernails get filled with mud. My God that shower felt glorious. I will never forget it.

We had a few hours of down time before our highlight adventure of the day: A boat trip through Halong Bay. If you don't know what Halong Bay is or looks like, Google it. It's absolutely breathtaking. There are thousands and thousands of little islands within 6 kilometers of the coast and they are a crazy sight to see. The islands are uninhabited by people, and are so tall and jungle-y that humans probably couldn't walk through them if they wanted to.

Our tour included this trip on the "junk boat" (funny name, I don't know where it comes from) along with a seafood lunch on board. Usually the food on this kind of floating tourist trap is serious crap and likely to give you dysentery, but holy man was this food good! We had several courses of seafood, including freshly cooked, unpeeled shrimp, fried calamari and these awesome different-kinds-of-seafood-stuffed crabs. I was wildly impressed.

Selling stuff to tourists is a way of life as we've learned, but while on the junk boat we witnessed something beyond our wildest hawking imaginations. A small boat pulled right up next to our much larger boat, and a young girl (I'd say about 8) jumped from that boat onto ours with a bunch of fruit that she was trying to sell us through the window - in the rain! She was really nimble on her feet so I bet she does that jump 100 times a day. Craziness!

A few hours into our boat journey we stopped at an island that had a cave, where we got off the boat and walked through the stalagmites and stalactites. They had jazzed it up with neon lights, which really robbed the place of any authentication, but it was really cool to see what nature had done all by itself. Had it not been filled with tourists and neon lights it would have been reminded of the movie The Descent, where cave monsters pick off a group of cave explorers by eating them.

We got back on land about 4 p.m. and quickly realized that the only thing to do in the town of Halong Bay is see the islands. We don't have a travelers Bible, a.k.a. Lonely Planet guide, but the books other people brought made it clear that Halong Bay is not a place to spend much time in. See the islands, then move on. So we bathed in the glory of the A/C until we met some friends on their balcony (lucky ducks, we didn't get a balcony) for a few drinks before dinner.

The restaurant we went to, like many other restaurants in town, had their available seafood on display, right out on the sidewalk. I was sad to see the fish and crabs awaiting their deaths in small aquariums, but if they didn't want to die they shouldn't have been born so delicious.

Marv was a culinary adventurer and tried sea mantis, which we both had never heard of before. He even watched the little fellas get scooped out of the aquarium and hauled back to the kitchen. Here's what they looked like alive:



And a short time later, not so alive:



He said it was like a big shrimp, with a lot less meat and taste. Boo for the most expensive thing on the menu not equalling a lot of yummy food.

I was ready for home after dinner so I went back while Marv and a few others hit up a bona fide locals club, called Club 18. As soon as they walked in Marv & Co. were surrounded by locals who wanted to talk to and dance with them. The people are so friendly here! Someone wrote on their cell phone "Welcome to Halong Bay, you are my friend" (aww!) and Marv even got a phone number - from a guy.

Friendly indeed!

Day 17: Hue Day 2

With our limited time in Hue the quickest and easiest way to see everything we needed to see was by motorbike. This time we weren't given the option of driving our own, which was a wise decision since traffic is way crazier here.

We checked out of our room and were off at 8 a.m., all but 1 of the entire group. Our first stop was a local rice farming village. It had 1000 inhabitants which just happens to be the same size as my hometown. I think it's crazy that if the dice would had rolled another way I could have been born in white rice Vietnam, instead of white bread North Dakota.

We went to a small rice museum, where an 82-year-old woman with jet black teeth showed us how rice is harvested. It was interesting to see how it's done since I had no idea how the green stalks in the paddy turned into edible rice. I am not exaggerating when I say this woman was as tall as my belly button, and she wasn't a dwarf. She was just incredibly, ridiculously tiny. I feel like such a giant! The little lady sang us a rice crushing song, which Marv videotaped and has since replayed 200 times. We all thought it was pretty entertaining and overall rough on the ears.

We drove up to another abandoned American bunker, which all seem to have incredible views, and took a few awesome panoramic river pictures. It was so beautiful up there and, blessedly, breezy too.

On the way back to the motorbike I didn't see a gigantic rock on the road and kicked it HARD with my flip flopped foot. The nail on my middle toe immediately filled with blood underneath and I'm pretty sure broke in half, right in the middle. I get freaked out if I look at it too long so I just bandaged it up and hope to God it doesn't pop off. What would I do then?! Yikes! Two injures in two days. Somebody put me in a straight jacket!

We then went to an old Vietnamese king's tomb, though they don't know exactly where on the grounds he's buried since he's buried with a lot of valuables. There's no more royalty here since the Commies took over. Then we drove to a Coliseum-like arena (much smaller, though) where said royalty would have elephants and declawed tigers fight each other for their entertainment. That sounds like some seriously sick entertainment.

We made a quick stop by the citadel and a pagoda, but by this time I was getting sun weary and mentally checked out. The architecture is beautiful, looks more fitting for China, but I didn't get a whole lot of useful information about what I was seeing.

On the way back into town we stopped at a road side stand that makes incense and other handicrafts. I don't burn incense because I'm not Buddhist and don't have the need to cover up the small of weed, but I was in the market for a tote bag that I can keep our laptop and other carry-on travel items handy. And I succeeded! I got this hand embroidered bag for $5. They wanted $6.50 for it but I wasn't about to pay that much so I very gently dipped my toe into the waters of haggling. I am more than willing to pay $5 to finally throw away my ghetto ICA grocery bag.

We had to cram in all our Hue sightseeing in the morning since we had to leave in mid-afternoon for our next night train. We left our hotel at 2 since the train left at 3, or at least we hoped it would. We sat there an extra hour and 45 freaking minutes until the train finally decided to arrive. We were all so wiped from our early start that day that, like toddlers, we immediately went down for a nap as soon as we got access to our bunk beds. We slept like the dead. It was the most glorious nap I ever remember taking.

We hadn't had a shower since before 8 a.m. (with was many hot, sweaty, dusty hours ago) so we were all feeling quite grody. These trains don't have toilet paper, much less showers, so we had to fester the entire evening and night. They turned off the air conditioning at night, which was a decision that filled me with murderous rage. That train was literally a sweat lodge on tracks. It was BOILING hot in there. I think I can speak for everyone when I say we were absolutely POURING sweat. My pillow was drenched. By the time we got to our destination I am amazed that my clothes hadn't disintegrated straight off me. GROSS!

We tried to be social and enjoy some drinks but the beverage cart quickly ran out and we were all tired and feeling disgusting from our long day. We hit the hay by 11 p.m. and arrived, amazingly on time, at 5 a.m. to Hanoi.

But Hanoi was not our final destination. We were headed for Halong Bay, a 3 hour drive outside of Hanoi. So we got on our bus at the crack of dawn and headed 3 hours east. You can about imagine how wild and crazy that bus ride was.

Day 16: Hue Day 1

Since we already had a day in Hoi An yesterday we decided to sleep in this morning. We weren't leaving until 1 p.m. and didn't have to be out of the hotel room until noon, so why not? Food service being what it is (read: slow as hell) we checked out at 11 a.m. so we could get some food in us for the bus ride ahead.

We searched restaurants on TripAdvisor and found one that was easy to find. I had pork wantons with homemade sweet and sour "sauce", which as you might remember was my favorite dish last night at the cooking class. And you know what? I liked mine better. I can't wait to make this at home! I also had a chocolate "milkshake", which was more like the best glass of chocolate milk ever, on steroids. I am very, very wary of their dairy here (milk is not refrigerated!) but it was well worth chancing gastrointestinal problems, which luckily never arrived. It was amazingly delish.

We left for a 4 hour drive to Hue, which is farther north in Vietnam. We drove through beautiful, picturesque mountains. These are the mountains that the Top Gear guys traveled on their motorbikes - I beg of you to watch that video if you haven't already! It was breathtaking, and not half as scary as some of our tour mates made it out to be. Guard rails and a reasonable speed do not a death defying drive make.

About half way through the mountains we stopped at an abandoned American bunker for panoramic views of the river (not sure which) and to buy some seriously cheap - real - pearl jewelry. All of us girls were told by the hawkers we "look way younger" than we are (ha!) but I wasn't in the mood for shopping. Though I see < $10 pearls in my near future.

Just as we were entering Hue I was snoozing and felt the driver SLAM on the brakes and lay on the horn. Marv saw what caused this reaction, and apparently we were very, VERY close to running over a 5 year old child. I shudder to think what the hell would have happened had we hit it. This was an early, and valuable, lesson to learn about the traffic in Hue. It's nowhere near as civilized as it is down south.

We only had 1 day in Hue so we had to make the most of it. Right away we rented a boat to take us down the river (again, not sure which) to see the city skyline. We even bought a few beers to bring with us for the 1-hour ride, because that's how we do. Imagine my elation at finding ice cold Budweiser in the store! Sadly, it was about as Budweiser-y as a can of spent motor oil so I'm glad I only bought one. Budweiser FAIL, sad for me.

As luck would have it we left for the boat tour right at sunset, which starts at the ridiculously early hour of 6 p.m., which my northern dwelling self can't get used to.
It was a beautiful, pleasant ride despite them trying to sell us nick nacky stuff the entire trip. It's an annoying fact of life being here.

As we were disembarking the boat we had to walk a plank to get from the boat to dry land, and as I was concentrating on not falling off the plank I rammed my face into a rusty sheet of corrugated metal that was conveniently located at face level. It hurt, yes, but it seriously freaked me out because had it been located a few inches lower there's no doubt in my mind I'd be blind in my right eye. I hit that sucker hard. Lucky for me it hit my forehead (which is weird since my eyebrow hurt) and lucky for me I just got my tetanus shot updated before I came. I got a little cut on my forehead so Marv has taken to calling me "Scar Face", since he's loving and supportive like that.

We then went out to dinner and for drinks at a bar called DMZ, which stands for Demilitarized Zone for those of you not down on your Vietnamese history. Sadly, it was my dear friend Amanda's wedding day back in North Dakota which I could not be there for, so I called her as she was getting ready for her big day. I hope she had a super fabulous day, and knows that I will celebrate with her as soon as I am able!

We hit the DMZ a little bit harder than we should have (story of our lives, right?) since tomorrow will hold yet another motorbike tour for us!