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Fairy tale wat on the klong.

A more humble spirit house, spirit houses are ubiquitous.

While semi-lost looking for a canal connection, struggling in the heat and jet-lag, I walked from behind and stumbled on this! No one else was around! Guess there is one of these in the middle of BKK too, I like the one I found.

Famous KSR, Khao San Road, a very very busy place, note backpacker, this IS backpacker street

In Vietnam! This little cafe with awesome veggie spring rolls was where I ate most meals, old Conroy's Pub doesn't get much action, like most establishments in Danang that I went to.

This whole beach could be called 'China Beach' where Marines first landed in VN, there is debate about which part is which, many call the far end, where you can see the bump of Marble Mountain, China Beach, this end they were calling 'My(me) Khe(kay) Beach', my room was $16/night.

My first night in VN heard all this drumming, must have been some full moon kid's dragon dance practice or something, the moon on the water was really something sitting outside at the ?pub.

Some artwork in the converted tea warehouse, fascinating place. The whole town suffered a flood some years ago and displayed marks to show how high water had got. Town itself was not touched in the war and was a small international Hong Kong-like trading center till river silted up.

Hoi An has big Chinese influence, note the Chinese Latern skeletons juxtaposed on the French Windowed House. I like this photo.

The streaks of rain are in many of these photos, gives you an idea how heavy the rain was. The prospect of riding back the 30km on motobikes in the rain lent an air of adventure to the outing. Turned out the rain off an on anyway, let up a few kilometres north of town. But then there are always large trucks and learning to properly learn to use one's motobike horn for adventure.

Threshing rice in the middle of an intersection, Forest asked these people and apparently they said they make like a dollar a day or so.

The gym where I spent most of my time, 8-11,1-4pm or so.

A loaded cyclo

As I walked out onto the pier these guys on the boat seemed to be taunting me a bit, laughing. So, I guess I asked permission to take a few photos and showed them the results on the dig.cam., which as usual made for much fun and laughter and even better shots sometimes, though not all were interested.

Fisherman, I was quite a stir when I visited the fish market, the fish ladies pulling my nose, guess they don't see them that big, pulling the blonde hair off my arms and throwing it at her friends like it was a curse, haha.

We blew up one of the surgical gloves I brought, the PT women drew a face on it and voila we were doing more active therapy for this unfortunate young man with a severe spinal cord injury, his wife behind him.This situation/interaction, of itself, made the year long preparation, expense and difficulties worth it all, just seemed like there was hope for him in some way.

Eating longan fruit, a common occurance.

Mr.Louis @Cham Museum, he is about as interesting as the musee, we made a quick tour. The Cham people are a fascinating thing.

"Uncle Ho" - Ho Chi Minh, the portrait in the PT gym.

Fish restaurants on My Khe Beach, with circular, bamboo/pitch boat.

In Tang Chon Dong caves.
some guys youtube video showing same places as photos

"this way to heaven" they would say. quite a slippery climb up to the great view on one of the peaks. the heaven cave or temple or so.

Again the ethereal Cham Islands in the distance of the South China Sea.

Some local guys I met on top, they later had me trade all my remaining $5 american bills to them as souvenirs, they gave me VN Dong.

Huyen Khong Cave, the chamber was used as a field hospital during the war by the Vietnamese.
This shaft of light is said to be from a hole from an American bomb. I lit always 3 sticks of incense in the caves at various Buddhist/Confuscian shrines, this makes for good shafts of light.

Sunrise at My Khe beach, the Vietnamese are out in force at like 5:30am till 8am or so whence they generally disappear to work I suppose. The AM is quite a scene with lots of soccer circles, playing keep away from each other(which I got to play a few times after they sort of taught me the rules), bathing in the small surf, volleyball and strange violent looking calisthenics. This one looks got enlarged.

the mountain in the back is called cat's tooth mountain, in the bowl of the valley, or maybe it was the humid humid heat, or the lack of people, but that mountain felt a bit ominous

Inside building B5.

The Lao civilian death count was astronomical. US B52 bombers could drop a hundred bombs at a time, and 580,000 bombing missions were conducted. The US dropped a planeload of bombs on Laos every eight minutes, day and night, for nine years from 1964 to 1973. That’s nearly two million tonnes of bombs – over half a tonne of bombs for every man, woman and child living in Laos.

Around a third of the population of Laos was killed, injured or made homeless by the air war – approximately a million people.

This is said to be a bomb crater, NVA or VC were apparently using this area and hence the bombing, the nicest temple was destroyed in one such bombing.

The bridge to/FROM the My Son Area ruins, then you take a 4x4 on the other side over VERY bumpy dirt road then walk 1/2 mile, in the major sweltering heat, I mean I had no shirt on and it was hard to walk on flat ground. With "cat's tooth" mountain looming above.

These little dioramas, complete with little chinese pagodas on the rocks and carp in the water are seen often, someday I'd like to learn the significance if any, this one is in the entrance to the hospital.

Some of the first Marines landing in Da Nang on China Beach

The only source of income for the most hill tribe people I'm told, though there were checkpoint we drove around that Tam said were to prevent larger logging operations.

This girl hiked up behind the rice wine & petrol stop to the falls with us, because she wanted her photo taken with them. I later mailed a photo to Tam to give her, hopefully it works out. Couples come here on weekends from the city, its not far, though seems farther on motobike. Apparently, no westerners had been out here in months, which I could believe based on the stares I got driving by on the back of the motobike.

The mysterious valley we rode up, doubled on the white motobike, not another farang to be seen, much curious almost shocked gazes as I unsuccessfully tried to pull down my cap and pass unnoticed, a few scary looks too, as we got further up I got a bit unnerved being so far off the beaten track, but my friend convinced me that she wanted me to see this hill tribe village not far from where this photo was taken, so we continued to the village, stayed an hour or so then made are way back before it began to get dark. The road apparently not long ago was very bad.

When going to a hill tribe village, I suppose one should first meet the headman/men, I took this first photo then showed it to them on the digital camera and then much excitement ensued, actually they ran away when I pointed it at first, till we sat down for rice wine.

a woman with interesting face chewing betel nut

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i wanted to take a photo of this girl on the right, as this was a montagnard/'ethnic minority' village, and the jewellery she was wearing was as much that looked native as i saw, but she was shy, eventually they let me come in to their ?home(it had a bed i believe to the right), this was her mother on the left, they told me the wild pigs ruin their crops, and it gets cold in the hills, vs. the vietnamese lowlands, i've tried to find a way to support the village without luck so far. though, i'm told tam(my friend/driver) has brought some clothes

back in danang city, on the market street, don't see so many peddle cyclos there except it seems as a vehicle for loads of things that won't fit on motos/mopeds

A good friend of my friend in Danang City, my last night there we drank beer lauru, the official beer of Danang it seems, quite cheap, but not bad, this guy would eat those little red peppers like candy and challenge me too, of course I tried and suffered, but this guy was so fun, I gave him my tried and true sunglasses I had bought in BKK and he rode off wearing them on this motobike, I hope to see him again someday, didn't spend much time with him, he is a great cook.

Back in Bangkok & I started hearing rumours in the shops that there was some big festival tonight, turns out it was a Hindu festival that has something to do with body piercing and Shiva, apparently the local Bangkokians are a superstitious lot and participate in Hindu festivals as well as Buddhists ones, So there were men dressed wildly with needles through both cheeks that were then attached to headresses who danced down the closed streets to the Hindu Gopuram/Temple while Hindu gods rode on palaquins pulled by 10-15 people per rope, garlands were strewn and blessings by the piercee were give,, I then snapped this intriguing looking photo.

After barely sleeping, getting up at 3am to get to the BKK airport, and luckily the night before, blindly inputting my PIN into a local bank's ATM to cover the taxi fare to get $20 or so, whew, I then took the 6 hour flight to Tokyo/Narita, had the 8 hour layover, then the 4-5 hour ride to Guam to arrive after midnight and my kind friend Julie was there, so nice to be back on Guam I changed plans from flying direct to Honolulu 3 days later, stayed a week at Julie's and at her suggestion, changed to the "island hopper" which I could do since my flight was paid for using frequent flyer mileage, ironically enough that I had compiled from when 4 years before I had lived there. This is Asan Beach, another place along with Danang where Marines landed, albeit in WWII.

Rob and Scratchy on quiet Tumon beach, drinking miller lite, nice sunsets there.

Where they get the name 'Micronesia'

flying from guam, coming into chuuk/truk main island, on the micronesia island hopper

at the kosrae island airport terminal, ladies returning from some kind of singing convention on nearby
pohnpei island, with welcoming singing line inside. LINK
i believe the sign takes a few liberties with the outline of the island, but its probably mysterious, though i forget why

Boiled Pig Stomach anyone? how about crumbled for $1 15,000D=$1