Viva Robusto!

Mmm... sacrilicious

2011-04-10T12:01:00.000-07:00

Ask anyone who knows me in real life, or anyone who has read my book: I am extremely particular about my pizza toppings. Generally speaking, I will only eat one topping: pepperoni. If there's no pepperoni available, I will grudgingly eat plain cheese pizza. Vegetarian pizza can go to hell, and I don't even dig on sausage and mushroom pies. But things may be changing.

A couple years ago, Liz and I discovered this recipe for white pizza topped with arugula. It's totally great, and it totally violates my pizza principles. We've added it to our regular pizza rotation.

Now there may be another candidate. A few weeks ago up at Crippen Creek, Don whipped up a variety of small pizzas for dinner, including the usual suspects... pepperoni, margarita, cheese... and a bacon/garlic/spinach concoction that really got my attention. In fact, as I was waiting for a hot pepperoni pie to come out of the oven, I sneaked a slice. One slice turned into two. Then the next day, when we were heating up leftover pizza for lunch, I found myself reaching for the bacon/garlic/spinach slices before I reached for pepperoni.

It was pizza sacrilege, pure and simple. But you better believe that it was worth every last sinful bite. Here's how to make your own:

Make or buy your usual pizza dough. Cook up some bacon, I recommend Fletcher's. When the dough is ready for toppings, drizzle olive oil, salt and minced raw garlic generously over the top. Add a handful of baby spinach leaves, top with mozzarella, then sprinkle your chopped bacon on top. Grate some parmigiano over the top of everything. It should look roughly like this:

And here it is out of the oven:

Now obviously bacon is a pork product... and not entirely unlike pepperoni. And yeah, I love bacon... so it's not like these toppings are a total stretch. But the raw garlic and spinach transform the pizza from a mere variant of pepperoni into something special that deserves its own place in my exclusive pantheon of pizza toppings. You could also try adding goat cheese and/or arugula (which is what Liz did) for a kind of hybrid between the bacon pizza and Ina Garten's White Pizza.

Coming soon: I have Sunday Gravy (spaghetti and meatballs) simmering on the stove right now. It's in hour 2 of a 4-5 hour simmer, and I'll post a report in the following days.

Bloggin' 2: Electric Blogaloo

2011-03-25T09:39:00.000-07:00

One post per year, Fazio? That's all we get? Nah, Viva Robusto is blowing up huge in 2011. Since I've been away for so long, the least I can do is start off with some photos.

Fried chicken with bacon'd greens and mashed potatoes

Pumpkin pasta with pork belly

White pizza topped with arugula and lemon vinaigrette

Crippen Creek pork chop with roasted brussel sprouts and salad

Thanksgiving dinner rolls

And my signature home-baked rustic loaf

So, as you can see, I never stopped taking photos of the food we prepared, I just stopped blogging about it. In my defense, I did spend some of the time I wasn't blogging publishing a book, moving into a house (and painting every room), having a baby and working a full-time job.

However, since the ad agency I was working for has more or less decided to move to Ohio, I have a lot more time on my hands. And my loss is your gain, Viva Robusto faithful!

Look for updates soon and on the regular. And I mean it this time.

Le Super Bowl

2010-02-07T21:31:00.000-08:00

Yeah, it's been almost a year since I've updated. My excuse? I wasn't sure that I wanted to continue with the blog. I started working again, and things were busy. Every time I considered making a post I realized how long it had been since my last update, and I felt that any new content would sort of imply that I was going to continue maintaining Viva Robusto with more new content, and I just wasn't sure I wanted to do that.

Well. I guess I'm back on board, at least for now. Liz and I are still cooking a lot of interesting stuff, and we take pictures maybe 30% of the time. But we haven't made anything so remarkably wonderful or unusual that I just had to go out and blog about it. Until now.

I finally made a cassoulet. I had never even heard of the dish until Christmas 2008, when Liz's father Don made some around Christmas time. He went all out, using his own duck to make duck confit, ham hocks from his own pigs (I believe) and his own homemade kielbasa sausage. It took him three days, and believe me when I tell you that the result must have been worth every minute.

I decided that I'd like to give the dish a try at some point, but I never got around to it last winter. This year, Don made Cassoulet again for Christmas, and I renewed my vow to make the dish before the weather started getting warm again. But for what occasion? Cassoulet isn't the sort of thing you whip together on some random Tuesday for one or two people. No. A feast so grand requires a major event or holiday to justify the effort and expense the chef lovingly pours into the dish.

Enter the Super Bowl. I love the Super Bowl, for the game and the commercials and the chance to get together and eat some really unhealthy food with friends. I have only missed one Super Bowl broadcast since 1985, and that was because I was in Bangkok and the game was on at the ungodly hour of 6am.

So this year, the New Orleans Saints made it to the big game. For reasons I can't quite express or explain, I like the Saints. I like New Orleans. New Orleans has a strong French background. If you squint your eyes, Cassoulet is kind of like a French chili of sorts -- you know, meat, beans, fat -- and chili is practically the official dish of the Super Bowl. It all made sense. I was going to make cassoulet for the Super Bowl.

Unfortunately I arrived at this decision the day before the big game. No time to get my own duck, render the fat out of the legs and then ferment the meat in the fat in the fridge. In other words, no duck confit. But what's that old saying? No duck confit... no problem! My favorite part of the dish is the rich smokiness, and that comes from the ham hocks. And there would still be plenty of meat between what I scraped off the hocks and the sausage. So, after consulting Don three or four or eleven times over the phone, I armed myself with the Saveur recipe for cassoulet, and headed to the store to pick up ingredients.

First up, ham hocks. These things look disgusting in real life, but they're oh so delicious.

You start by boiling the hocks with some onions, thyme, salt and pepper for two hours. Here they are, ready to start imparting delicious smoky flavor to my stock.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I soaked my beans overnight.

While the ham hocks are rendering, you puree the raw garlic and onions with a little water.

When two hours are up, drain the ham hocks and keep the stock. Shred all the useful meat off the hocks and discard everything else. Pour the stock over the beans, bring to a boil and simmer for 45 minutes.

Here's the part where the duck fat and confit comes in. Usually you'd use the fat to cook the sausage. I just used butter. After browning the sausage, add the garlic/onion paste and cook a while longer.

Now you assemble the cassoulet in the baking dish. Put most of the beans on the bottom, then layer the pork on top of that. Put the sausage and garlic/onion on top of that. Then put even more beans on top of that. Finally, add about 3 cups of the stock. It looks messy, but it's going to taste great.

Bake for about an hour at 350, then reduce the heat to 250 and bake for another 3 hours. You're supposed to check every now and again to see if the cassoulet is forming a crust. If so, break the crust by pushing down on it with a spoon, and add more stock if it looks dry. I had to switch venues (from my house to a friend's) so mine didn't develop an ideal crust, but the pieces on top did get crispy enough. And here's how it turned out, pictured with a rib in the background.

I was extremely pleased with the results. The beans and sausage were melt-in-your-mouth soft with a deep, rich, smoky flavor. I suppose it couldn't possibly have been as rich as the real deal with duck confit, but I honestly couldn't taste the difference.

Typing this out, it doesn't sound all that complicated, but I would rate this meal as one of the most complex and effort-intensive I've ever produced. I'd say I spent three to four solid hours in the kitchen all told. Obviously that's not much compared to someone who's making their own duck confit from scratch, but it ain't exactly like microwaving a pizza either. Still, it was completely worth it. And I've discovered the joy of boiling ham hocks firsthand. If it were up to me, I'd start using them in just about every soup we make, a statement that no doubt terrifies my wife.

That's it for now. If I'm feeling inspired later, I'll post a write up of my first attempt at beef bourguignon.

Busy summer

2009-06-26T19:33:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been over a month again. But I'm not even going to apologize this time. At this point, I think Viva Robusto is a once-a-month kind of blog. I've just got too much going on to update it more than that.

Such as? Well, most significantly, I've started working again. I'm back at my former place of employment (an ad agency) as a contractor, working around half time in the office for a couple of new clients. Call me crazy, but it's nice to be in an office working on a regular schedule again. And yeah, it feels good to be employed after 20+ months living as a poker "pro."

More big news: If anyone even still remembers about our epic trip around the world, I'm just about ready to publish my book!

I sort of gave up on shopping the thing around right around the time the economy was circling the toilet bowl. Two (2) published authors with connections in the industry advised me that nobody was buying anything, so I figured the best move might be to bide my time rather than spam every literary agent in the world.

In the meantime, I heard some good things about self-publishing. Turns out several outfits offer "on-demand" publishing, which means they will print up a single copy of my book each time someone buys the thing through Amazon.com or another online retailer. In other words, no need for me to purchase 10,000 copies and warehouse them in the basement.

And while I will receive pretty decent royalties for each self-published copy sold, I also retain the rights, and the option to make a deal with a traditional publisher. Even if I don't get any nibbles, it's nice to have the option.

So, it's still probably a couple months off, but it's coming. You'll hear about it here, and probably in some kind of worldwide spam email from me.

On to the food portion of the blog! Let's just get this out of the way: Mandatory asparagus shot.

Yeah, we eat a lot of asparagus, and we're always taking pictures of it for some reason. I dunno, it just seems to go with everything. Like melt-in-your-mouth beef loin with bearnaise sauce and twice-baked potatoes.

Another Viva Robusto staple: Roasted potatoes. Pictured with Kirkland steak seasoning, which is actually pretty tasty stuff.

Sort of a first try at fish tacos. We pan-seared a pre-made mix of raw fish, onions and seasoning from a local grocery store, and it turned out pretty well. The fish in real fish tacos should be crispy and fried in my opinion, but these were pretty good and we didn't have to splatter the whole stove with grease to make 'em. (A grease screen is high on the list of things I am planning on purchasing when Liz and I are back in a house).

Of course, we've had many good meals at Crippen Creek since I last posted. This one stood out. 3 courses, starting with spaghetti and mussels.

Next, wild salmon that Liz's dad caught himself. This is probably the best salmon I've ever had. Lightly crusted with butter and bread crumbs and topped with minced garlic and herbs. I don't mean to brag, but this is a pretty appetizing photo, and it doesn't even do the food justice. So good. If you look closely, you can even see a little asparagus in the background.

Oh, and the dinner still wasn't done. Final course: Rare beef loin and, you guessed it, asparagus.

One last piece of big news before I end this update: I finally got the motorcycle I've been after for years. When I agreed to travel around the world with Liz (and spend nearly all of my poker savings in the process), one condition was that I would be allowed to buy a brand-new Triumph motorcycle when we returned. Well, it's been about 10 months, and it finally happened. This baby was actually used, but it only had 17 miles on it. I couldn't pass it up.

It rides as nice as it looks.

That's it for now. See you next month, hopefully with more news about the book.

Eating the Easter Bunny

2009-05-07T11:13:00.000-07:00

Vegetarians and vegans beware: In this edition of Viva Robusto, I document the killing and eating of a couple of cute, furry bunnies.

The story begins a few months ago, when Liz's friend Jessi from grad school contacted me on Facebook after one of my Viva Robusto updates. Turns out she and her husband are particularly resourceful foodies, making the most of their modestly-sized NE Portland yard to raise chickens, grow all manner of vegetables and, now, raise a crop of rabbits for meat.

The first batch of bunnies was going to be ready for slaughter in a few weeks; did we want to come over to document the process -- and the first meal -- on our blog?

Naturally I jumped at the opportunity, although I told Jessi that Liz would have to take the gory pictures if they wanted photos of the processing.

Well, we ended up missing out on the actual bunny killing, which left me relieved and Liz somewhat disappointed. But we did come over to sample and photograph their first meal prepared with homegrown meat -- Rabbit Cacciatore.

As the cacciatore simmered on the stove, Jessi led us on a tour of her incredible backyard -- in which nearly every inch of land is being put to good work growing vegetables or housing chickens and rabbits.

The reproductive cycle of rabbits is downright amazing. The male stud rabbit is kept in a separate cage -- until it's time to fertilize the female. When the male and female are placed in the same cage they instantly have sex, and the female gives birth to anywhere from 2-10 babies about a month later. A few weeks after that, it's possible to repeat the process!

Meanwhile, the batch of young rabbits is ready to process and eat in just a few short months, with each rabbit yielding around 2 pounds of meat. I haven't done the math, but it seems like even with only one male and female, two people could practically live off rabbit alone if they were so inclined. Talk about sustainability.

On to the pictures. Here's the lucky stud rabbit:

Here's the mother:

And last but not least, here's the cacciatore:

This is a "hunter-style" Italian dish with tomato, mushroom, onion and plenty of herbs and spices. It was already simmering when we arrived so we don't have any prep pictures. But here's what it looked like on the plate and ready to eat:

This was the big moment for Jessi and her husband. There was a bit of pressure associated with that first bite of homegrown rabbit -- after all, they had another 10+ pounds sitting in the fridge -- it had better be good!

I'll spare you any drama -- it was fantastic. A little more complex and hearty than chicken, but far from gamey. We ate it with homemade bread and oven-roasted asparagus, and it made a wonderful meal.

Of course, you're probably still wondering -- what did we actually eat on Easter Sunday? Turns out my parents had been saving a nice big chunk of ham from the Speranzas' pig for just such an occasion. So we had a homegrown, nitrate-free ham slow-roasted with some kind of sweet bourbon glaze, and it was spectacular.

Most of the cuts of meat from the Speranzas' pigs look quite different than their store-bought equivalents. They're darker and almost kind of gray -- not as attractive in their raw state, really -- but incredibly flavorful when cooked and healthier than store-bought pork.

This roast was just off the charts in my opinion. My parents brined the ham in advance so it was tender and juicy, and the salty/sweet contrast between the meat and the sweet bourbon glaze was to die for. I ate approximately 3 pounds on my own and promptly got the meat sweats.

Wrapping this post up, here are a few other notable meals we've enjoyed lately.

Some kind of African peanut/curry/vegetable stew that Liz prepared. A sprinkle of cilantro and fresh-squeezed lime on top... we'll be making this again.

Coffee cake muffins. Also made by Liz.

Our first attempt at Piadina, an Italian flatbread. Topped here with brie, fresh basil and prosciutto. I made the bread itself a little too thick, but this is another one we'll continue to experiment with.

Another potato leek soup -- this time using Ina Garten's recipe topped with crispy shallots. The shallots really make the dish.

That's it for now. Hopefully we'll get to do some grilling this summer -- we packaged our grill with the house when we sold in 2007 and we're itching to get back in the game.

Lasagna Virgin

2009-04-08T09:58:00.000-07:00

I suppose the title says it all -- until last month I had never cooked my own lasagna from scratch. Yes, I love cooking, and I love Italian food, but lasagna was always just off my radar screen.

See, I've had a number of mediocre to bad lasagne in my life. Chalky, bland, mushy... there are so many ways a lasagna can be done poorly, and I suspect I've tried all of them. When it came time to cook something for myself, lasagna simply never registered as an option.

In recent years, however, I've had a number of lasagne that have brought the dish back into my good graces. My mom discovered an excellent lasagna recipe at some point during my college years, and has been making it every now and then for the past decade. More recently, Liz started making the Barefoot Contessa's Turkey Lasagna recipe with incredible results. So, I decided to give it a shot.

I used the same recipe with a few modifications. Most significantly, I used spicy Italian pork sausage instead of sweet Italian turkey sausage. In any case, here's how it all came together.

Onions and garlic ready to be sauteed.

Sausage -- casings removed -- into the pan.

Brown the sausage, add pureed tomatoes and seasonings, including fresh parsley.

In this recipe, we used regular lasagna noodles (not "no-cook" noodles) but we didn't exactly cook them. Ina Garten has you place them in a bowl of hot tap water for 20 minutes instead. I'm guessing this technique helps the noodles retain an al dente texture after all that time in the oven.

Prepping the cheeses.

Finally, we build the lasagna.

Ran out of sauce at the end... I could have done a better job estimating how much needed to go in each layer, but ultimately I don't think it mattered much.

Straight out of the oven:

And onto the plate, served with roasted asparagus.

I impressed myself... this lasagna was terrific. I like the creaminess and rich flavor that the goat cheese adds.

What else have we been cooking? Without getting into as much detail as the lasagna, here are a few pictures.

Tagliarelle with truffle butter (I couldn't find truffle butter in any brick and mortar store -- even Pastaworks. Apparently we need to order it online. So I substituted regular butter and a bit of truffle oil).

Wish I could take credit for this. Chili Egg Puff with potatoes sauteed in duck fat at Crippen Creek. There are no words.

A better look at those potatoes getting nice and crusty in that wonderful duck fat.

Our friend Austin, who is from Oregon but lives in Thailand, has given us a good technique for making Thai curries. Pictured: Masaman curry.

Meatballs for Italian Wedding Soup. A little different than the meatballs we use for Sunday Gravy, but pretty good in their own right.

I can't stop making this bread. What can I say?

Finally, here's what we had last night. From the latest issue of Saveur, pan-seared flatiron steak with herb butter.

The mashed potatoes don't look as appetizing as they might have, because I poured some of the pan juice on top of them. However, I can assure you that they were delicious.

What's next on the agenda? I vow to attempt a cassoulet before the end of the year. I am tinkering with and perfecting my pizza recipe. And some friends of ours are raising rabbits for meat, and they have invited us to share and photograph a special meal they will prepare after the slaughter. Until then!

Three types of bread - plus Andina trip report

2009-03-12T11:55:00.001-07:00

Okay, so I didn't make a single post in February. And it's taken me half of March to get this one up. Well, I'll tell you, I'm just about as busy as an unemployed guy can be. I had a freelance assignment, and I've been playing cards a couple hours a day to make ends meet. But mostly, I've been baking a ton of bread.

Now, Liz and I have been making our own focaccia and pizza dough for a couple years now, but the other week I stumbled across a recipe on the internet that sparked my interest. It's the New York Times "No-Knead" bread recipe, and apparently it was all the rage a few years back. Yeah, we're behind the times.

The "trick" to the recipe is that you bake the bread in a Dutch Oven, which apparently mimics the conditions inside a professional steam-injected oven to give you a crispier crust.

It works. Incredibly well. My first attempt at the recipe:

Light and airy on the inside with a crispy crust. I was never able to achieve this kind of texture in my bread by baking it uncovered.

The crazy thing is how simple this bread is to prepare. Here's a link to the New York Times recipe.

Now, I spoke with my father-in-law Don about this recipe, and it turns out he's been using the Dutch Oven technique to bake bread for a while now. But, he thinks the NYT recipe needs more salt. He has his own recipe and techniques (which I won't reveal here; check out one of his cooking classes for details), and he suggested I experiment with the dough a little bit.

Bake more bread? Okay, twist my arm. Here's a roll I made using some normal focaccia dough that had only risen for 2 hours!

Not quite as airy on the inside as the NYT loaf, but the crust was out of this world. Since then, I've made another large-sized loaf using focaccia dough that rose for closer to 8 hours. It was virtually identical to the NYT texture.

Now if you don't have a Dutch Oven, or if you have virtually no patience at all, you can still make some pretty good bread. This is the beer bread recipe I referenced in the last post. To refresh your memory: Mix 3 cups of self-rising flour with 1/2 cup of sugar. Pour in a beer and stir it up. Pour the batter into a buttered bread pan, then pour another 1/4 to 1/2 cup of melted butter on top. Bake at 375 for an hour. Here's what it should look like:

This is a whole different style of bread... crumbly and a bit denser than one you'd make with yeast... but great in its own way. This goes really well with soup.

Okay, enough about bread. I promised an Andina trip report and it's time to deliver. First, a little backstory. Andina serves Peruvian food and is one of the most well-regarded restaurants in the Portland area. We'd heard great things and wanted to check it out, but we couldn't quite justify spending the money when I still hadn't found work. Then I got a gift certificate for my birthday back in November. We finally got around to using it last week.

At some point between the first time we heard about the restaurant and our meal there, our friends Seth and Karen told us that their friend Peter owns the place. I thought I'd mention this both because it's interesting, and also in the interest of full disclosure (even though we haven't met Peter).

Apologies in advance for these photos; the lighting in the restaurant was extremely dim (as is usually the case), making food photography particularly difficult.

Our server brought us a basket of bread and three dipping sauces while we browsed the menu. In order, they were peanutty, mango/orange-y and chili/spicy.

In Argentina, we were often served appetizers just like this -- bread with a salsa-like dipping sauce (often chimichurri).

Next up, appetizers. Andina has a couple dozen to choose from, all available in pequeno, mediano and grande sizes. We decided on conchas a la parmesana (bay scallops baked with parmesan cheese and lime butter) and chicharron de pollo (rispy golden chicken studded with quinoa, served with huacatay-peanut sauce).

The scallops were fantastic. You can't even see them through that golden crust of parmesan.

The chicken was tasty, but fell short of the scallops. We were left wondering if we had missed out on some other mindblowing appetizer.

For entrees, I ordered the adobo de cerdo (pork tenderloin quickly braised in the Arequipa style, with butternut squash and gorgonzola ravioli, green apple, and a tamarillo-rocoto “uchucuta”) and Liz had the lomo saltado (wok-fried Cascade Natural Beef tenders with onions, tomatoes, soy sauce, garlic, and ají, served with rice and fried yuca).

First, the adobo:

The pork was tender and flavorful, and the sauce was extremely rich. I didn't notice the butternut squash and gorgonzola flavors in the ravioli; the rich flavor of the sauce overwhelmed them. I enjoyed the dish thoroughly, but afterward I felt a pang of regret that I hadn't ordered the corderito de los andes (a succulent double rack of grass-fed lamb grilled to order, and served with a Peruvian yellow potato and two cheese timbale with a sublime roasted pepper demi-glace).

On to Liz's lomo:

I only sampled a few bites, but the lomo was tangy, savory and delicious. Two thumbs up. As usual, we were both too full to consider any dessert. Between two pequeno appetizers, two entrees and two drinks each, we rang up a $108 tab (including tip).

Well, I actually have quite a few more food photos to post, but in the interest of getting something published on Viva Robusto, I'm going to save them for later and call this a wrap. Stay tuned -- I promise it won't take me another month to post again.

Serious Business

2009-01-27T10:13:00.000-08:00

After looking over my recent posts, I've decided that I'm not doing a very good job of actually describing the foods we've been making and enjoying. In fact, I think I've been doing a terrible job. I mean, sure, the photos are nice, but if this is going to be a food blog, I need to include recipes and a heck of a lot more detailed analysis -- no more lazy "amazing" or "delicious" adjectives.

So, obviously, let's get rolling with the new, improved Viva Robusto with a picture of some guy with an accordion.

Okay, it's not just some guy, it's my dad's cousin Mark being coaxed into a song or two at a big family gathering to celebrate my grandfather's 87th birthday, and my grandmother's sister's 80th. He was a little rusty, or so he claimed, before ducking into another room to "practice."

Ah, but before he could get started, the real professional took over. This guy is not actually one of my relatives; he's a friend of the family who also happens to be an Italian-themed entertainer and singer.

He reeled off all the classics -- "Volare," "That's Amore," "Tarantella," etc...

And, as to be expected, there was a metric ton of food. However, the event was catered, so there weren't any special family recipes to photograph and share. Maybe next time.

Moving on, Liz and I went up to Seattle to visit our friends Tam and Elissa, and encountered this truck on I-5.

Yeah, that looks to be about two or three chopped up pigs in the back of that Silverado, just loose in the bed without even a rear gate! Not sure if they're going to or from processing, but this is another sobering reminder: Unless you grow it yourself, you really never know where your food has been or what it's been up to!

Speaking of homegrown food, we all checked out the Ballard Farmer's Market while in Seattle.

There was a great selection of fresh produce, and we picked up potatoes, onions, garlic, leeks and carrots for soup later that night. But this was what really caught my eye:

Yep, that's a Triumph Bonneville T-100, almost the *exact* motorcycle I've been pining after for years. Minus the windscreen.

The dinner that night worked out beautifully. We decided on a creamy potato leek soup, using a recipe we found on Pinch My Salt, a much more professional and useful food blog than mine. That link will take you right to the recipe, which is pretty standard except for the innovation (for us, anyway) of using thinly sliced potatoes (rather than coarsely chopped), which are easier to mash down to a creamy texture right in the soup once they've cooked.

We also made roasted carrots using the Barefoot Contessa recipe (olive oil, salt, pepper... not exactly rocket science) and a big spinach salad with her mustard vinaigrette.

Now, the mustard vinaigrette recipe is one that's worth listing here. I'm not much of a salad guy, but it literally makes me salivate in anticipation every time.

The following proportions will make enough dressing for two or three people, so adjust accordingly.

2 cloves garlic
1 teaspoon spicy mustard
1 1/2 tablespoons champagne vinegar or white wine vinegar
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 egg yolk at room temperature
pepper to taste

Finely chop the garlic, whisk chopped garlic and all other ingredients together. You can substitute different types of vinegar for a different taste -- we used Balsamic once and it was an interesting change of pace. You can also increase the garlic and mustard for a spicier dressing... I sometimes chop 3 or even 4 cloves of garlic, but I'm kind of crazy that way.

Oh, almost forgot: We topped off the dinner with homemade beer bread. This is one of the easiest bread recipes ever. Mix 3 cups of self-rising flour with a quarter cup of sugar and a bottle of beer. Transfer the batter to a greased baking pan and pour anywhere from 1/4 to 1/2 cup of melted butter on top, bake at 350 until done (at least 40 minutes). It's impossible to screw this up. You end up with a nice, crispy buttery loaf of bread that goes great with soup.

Now that I've described our dinner in excruciating detail, I'm going to back it up with some glorious food pics, right? Uh, nope. Sorry. By the time we got everything done it was getting late and we just tucked right in. I completely forgot to take any pictures. My bad.

Not to worry, I've got some other mouthwatering food photos queued up. The next day we headed down to pike place to take this incredibly standard photo.

We were killing time while our wedding rings were being cleaned at EE Robbins, and we got a little hungry, so we wandered the market in search of my favorite fish & chip stand, Jack's.

Jack's doesn't offer too much in the way of ambiance or even seating, really. There are a few tipsy stools and a narrow aluminum counter. But the fish makes up for it. I usually get the Halibut, which is obviously the best, but since Liz and I were sharing, we went with a large order of Cod, just so there would be enough to go around.

Now, being a Halibut man, the Cod was actually a little bit disappointing. But it was still pretty dang good, thanks in large part to Jack's cocktail sauce. They usually reserve the stuff for prawns and so forth (you have to specially request it if you order fish and chips), but I find it goes best with the fish. It's tart and tangy and, I think, laced with horseradish.

Here's what it looks like. Word to the wise -- Jack's fish & chips are insanely greasy, which is just the way I like it. If you prefer "healthier" fish & chips, you might look elsewhere.

Back at home, planning our menus for the week. I wanted to experiment with some kind of a pesto pizza, and we figured we could use the leftovers in pasta later in the week, so I went out and bought a large box of basil and made some pesto.

This is only the second time I've made pesto (Liz usually makes it), but it's incredibly easy (if you have a food processor) and it comes out great.

Basically... pluck all the stems off your basil (about 4oz), wash the leaves and throw 'em in the food processor. Add maybe two or three cloves of garlic, a bit of olive oil (maybe 1/4 to 1/2 cup), some salt and as much parmesan cheese as you can grate before your arm gets tired. Fire that puppy up, then sample and adjust (add more oil, salt, garlic or cheese) according to taste.

Here's what we made with the leftovers... green basil pesto mac. This was just an improvised recipe -- I was trying to imitate the green basil pesto mac at Le Bistro Montage here in Portland.

While the pasta is boiling (I would recommend using larger macaroni than this -- these were just what I happened to have on hand), melt some butter (I used 1/4 stick for about 1/2 a pound of pasta) and a lot of grated parmesan in a saucepan. When the pasta is done (al dente), add a bit of heavy cream to the butter/parmesan melt (I think I used 1/3 cup or so) and bring it up to medium/low heat. With the heat still on, toss in the pasta and a few cloves of raw, finely chopped garlic, a couple tablespoons of pesto and even more parmesan. Saute and stir for a minute or so to coat. Then grate even more parmesan on top before serving. Yeah, it's a lot of parmesan. That's how they do it at the Montage, and that's the way I like it.

Parmesan pro tip: Trader Joe's has the best prices on authentic Parmigiano cheese. They also have Grano, which is extremely similar to Parmigiano, and is in fact produced across the river from Parma, but cannot legally be called Parmigiano.

That's it for now. More pics and recipes coming soon.

Just when you thought you were out... I pull you back in!

2009-01-02T10:25:00.000-08:00

For whatever reason, Blogger started working again on my desktop computer, which happens to be where all my post-travel photos are stored.

So, I guess I might as well update the blog!

First things first, we need to catch up. Liz and I returned home from our 10 months and one week of travel on August 7, 2008. Liz found work quickly and is pretty busy between her (now) full-time gig and occasional shifts at PWCL. I have been looking for work and working hard on my book, which I finished a couple of days before Thanksgiving.

I've still got a few tweaks here and there, and a few manuscripts out for editing, but I'm beginning the process of finding a literary agent. In case you are a literary agent (or publisher) and you have happened across this page, the book is a 56,000 word, narrative non-fiction account of how my wife and I traveled around the world. Yeah, I know, there are a million books like that. So what's the hook? I, um, actually hate to travel. My wife made me go places that I never thought I'd visit in a million years. So the book is tentatively called The Reluctant Traveler - Or, How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Third World, and it's a sarcastic rebuttal to the sort of dreamy travel books that make living in a thatched hut with 43 chickens and a voodoo shaman sound preferable to the author's previous home in the United States. And it's really [censored] funny.

But enough about that. Let's get back to what Viva Robusto has always been about -- food. I plan on updating this site on the semi-regular with pictures, recipes and stories about our culinary adventures.

These pictures are roughly in chronological order and go back to the first month or so after our return. First up, maple-oatmeal scones (Barefoot Contessa recipe). These have been a favorite since we first made them. If you don't already have Barefoot Contessa: Family Style, just run out and buy it right now. Every recipe we've tried is a winner (and we've tried a lot of them).

Grilled steak (with butter melting on top, obv), twice-baked potatoes and homegrown peas. If this doesn't sell The Inn At Crippen Creek Farm, I don't know what does.

A couple of the pigs raised right on the property for later use as bacon and other delicious pork products.

Some kind of molten chocolate cake/brownie thing that was pretty obviously delicious.

When we were in Italy, my grandfather's late brother's ex-wife made us the most amazing minestrone soup with pesto. Liz and I tried to recreate the recipe here using the America's Test Kitchen recipe for minestrone and Don's pesto recipe. Results? It wasn't quite as good, but it was damn close.

Another favorite from our trip recreated at home: Cochinita Pibil. I used the recipe from the Once Upon a Time in Mexico DVD, believe it or not. Basically, you marinate about 3 pounds of pork shoulder in a spice and lemon juice concoction (heavy with annatto), then slow-bake it for 4-6 hours at a low temperature. The pink onions are simply pickled red onions. Again, it wasn't quite as good as the real stuff in Mexico, but it was our first try. And it actually got better overnight in the fridge.

Another picture. The texture was amazing -- fall-apart juicy.

Hot coppa from New Seasons. My 2nd favorite cured meat in the world. Obviously we had nothing to do with the preparation of this food, I just thought it looked delicious. Look at those spicy seeds on the corner there... it makes my mouth water every time I see this photo.

For Liz's birthday dinner, I made bacon-wrapped filets with mushrooms and a wine-based pan sauce (and Liz added some mashed potatoes). The pan sauce recipe came from America's Test Kitchen and was excellent. Unfortunately the meal itself wasn't very photogenic once we plated everything up, so I've posted a photo of myself preparing it instead. You can tell it's going to be a good meal by the plate of blood sitting on the stove.

One of our few meals out since our return. This is some kind of deep-fried gnocchi with cream, sauce (I think it may have been plum sauce) and sage, and it was really the only good part of the meal. I had some kind of a fettucine dish with wild boar that was mediocre at best (and looked disgusting to boot) and Liz had French onion soup that was served lukewarm. Bummer.

My first attempt at a cake, ever. This is ultra-rich chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting. We ate this after a particularly decadent dinner and it sent me to the bedroom for about an hour of lying on my stomach and groaning afterward. Two thumbs up!

Another wedding with excellent food. Liz's brother pictured here enjoying the dessert.

Thanksgiving pie, glazed and ready to go in the oven. Liz's sister Kate made this.

Something new: Abel Skivars. I'm not sure how to spell that, and even Google couldn't help me. But basically, it means apple pancakes. Round apple pancakes. Our friends Seth and Karen made these for us.

Here's how they look when they're all done. We tried 'em with apple, blueberry (I think) and we even made a couple with bacon on the inside. You dip them into some kind of jam and powdered sugar before eating.

Christmas dinner at my grandparents. Two enormous, identical prime ribs. As good as they looked.

These may have been from a mix, but they sure looked cool.

Salad up at Crippen Creek with roasted pear topped with candied walnuts and blue cheese.

Some kind of a "pudding cake" (?) that I forgot to try after dinner.

After Christmas, Don and Dave made sunday gravy with meatballs. The sauce cooks all day long with homemade Italian sausage, meatballs and (I think) pork ribs. Don said at dinner that if he were on Death Row, this would be his choice for his last meal.

Afterward, homemade cannoli. Tragically, I was too full to eat any.

Well, that's it for the first real Viva Robusto post in months. Now that Blogger is working I will continue to update this page with new photos and recipes as often as I can. Hope you stay tuned.

Viva "Viva Robusto!"

2008-10-31T11:28:00.000-07:00

I know you've been waiting patiently for something new to appear in this space since our return to the United States. Unfortunately, several factors have conspired to keep me from updating our beloved blog.

1. Trial photo slideshow program too limited.
I was hoping to edit together a slideshow. I had the whole thing worked out -- I already selected all the photos and music -- but the program I was using topped out at 36 photos max. That's not gonna cut it. If you know of a cool shareware photo slideshow program with unlimited photo potential, I'm all ears.

2. I can't log into Blogger from our desktop.
I'm not sure why this is happening, but every time I try to log into Blogger from our desktop, I get a page that simply reads, "Not Found." I can log in from our laptop, but that doesn't really do me any good because all of our new pictures are on the desktop. And the laptop hard drive is too full for me to simply move them over.

For now, all I can offer is the promise that I will add new pictures and a photo slideshow... at some point in the near future. Until then, here's something to get excited about -- I just passed the 50,000 word mark on my book. I have 3-ish chapters left to complete before I start shopping the thing around. I'm not one to toot my own horn, but it is probably the greatest book ever produced in the history of Western civilization.

Until next time...

Long overdue update

2008-08-28T14:30:00.000-07:00

If you've been refreshing Viva Robusto for the past couple weeks in frustration, your patience is about to pay off. I have finally been able to upload the final pics from Mexico, as well as a whole bunch of delicious food pics from our return home.

Diving right in...

On our way to Mexico City from Puerto Escondido and the Oaxacan coast, we got to spend a few nights in our old apartment in Oaxaca City. And that meant another chance to enjoy tacos arabes from Salomon Tacos on Independencia. These are a little like al pastor tacos in that they only contain meat carved from a spit, but they're served in a fluffier, pita-like flour tortilla. Delicious.

Our last of many bus rides. Cause for celebration.

Mural by Diego Rivera in a government building near the centro historico.

One of the biggest "pinas" we ever saw. (Note: not actually a pina.)

More from the botanical garden at the same building.

More shirt-sightseeing coordination.

Mexico City is the biggest city we've ever visited; it's the 2nd largest in the world behind Tokyo. Look at how far ahead of us they are in walking-replacement technology!

This, unfortunately, is the last picture our sad little elph camera will ever take. It survived a drop in Florence, countless sandy beaches and took well over 10,000 photos (not even counting ones we deleted) before finally giving in. Liz was mad because this particular photo was just a poker-related in-joke.

So... that's it for photos from Mexico! It's a little anti-climactic, I know. But we did have a brand-new Canon Digital Rebel xTI waiting for us at home! We didn't know how to use it very well at first, but we could tell right away that it was capable of taking some amazing photos. Muffins at my parents' house.

We finally reunited with our dog! Poor Ash had gained about 10-15 pounds and was consequently pretty lethargic at first. But now that we've got him on Atkins and a strictly regimented workout plan he seems to have regained some of his youthful energy.

After riding scooters around in Asia and Italy, it was nice to come home to a real bike. Once I got the battery charged she ran like a dream despite sitting for over 10 months.

Speaking of dreams, American Dream pizza. This is the stuff I was obsessed with all year long. All that buildup and anticipation, and it was still even better than I could have hoped it would be. If you're ever in Portland or Corvallis, do yourself a favor and try it for yourself.

The sunsets in Portland rival the most beautiful we found anywhere else in the world.

Right away we had occasion to ditch the T-shirts and flip flops for a wedding.

We're still eating pretty dang well. The wedding was catered by Papa Hayden.

We may have left Mexico behind, but a little bit of the culture will remain with us always.

Too bad we didn't have this camera during our trip. Low-light photography is no longer impossible!

Just a heads-up: About 99% of the rest of our pics are of food. So if you don't care about that, check back in a few days for a final Viva Robusto wrap-up - Viva Robusto by the numbers.

After the wedding, we headed up to Crippen Creek to see Liz's family and continue indulging in amazing food. I'm usually not much for beets, but these were home grown and actually pretty tasty.

Don putting the final touches on dinner.

Which was homemade biscuits....

... fried chicken, mashed potatoes and beets.

A few of the veggies from the Speranzas' hoop house. First, basil.

Some kind of pepper.

Eggplant.

And baby bok choy.

Okay, now the rest of the pics are really all just food. There's always a pile of fresh-baked focaccia around at Crippen Creek.

Kitty's award-winning sticky buns.

Did you know that you can make dulce de leche by boiling a can of sweet and condensed milk? Me either. Google it before you try anything; according to Don, explosions can be an unwanted side-effect if this isn't cooked properly. Anyway, this went into homemade dulce de leche ice cream.

Homemade cinnamon roll and scrambled eggs from their own hens. Doesn't get much better than that for breakfast. I take that back. It will be slightly better when their pigs are mature and we can have home-raised bacon too.

I made up an extra batch of dough so we decided to try focacetta as an appetizer. According to my grandmother, you just make your regular focaccia dough, cut it into small pieces and roll it flat. Let the dough sit for about 10 minutes, then deep-fry it in oil. That's it. The results are dozens of fluffy, airy dough pockets that you can rip in half and stuff with prosciutto, salami and/or cheese. Or for a dessert, you can dip them in a cinnamon/sugar mix.

Steak with homemade chimichurri sauce. Don was paying attention to the Argentina portion of our blog and wanted to try his hand at some chimichurri. I think this was the best one I had.

As if that weren't enough, we also had risotto that night. Incredible.

From one feast to another... back in Portland, our friend Aruna invited us to a dinner party where she would be preparing Indian food. She's a great cook; how could we say no?

Her homemade samosas next to an assortment of spices.

This is a store-bought sauce but it looked pretty and tasted even better, so what the hell?

Everything else was from scratch, including saffron rice, a couple curries and several other excellent dishes that I feel ashamed to not know by name.

Ok, at this point we'd been home from Mexico for a couple weeks and I was craving Mexican food again. Here's a quick black bean, rice, chicken and homemade salsa dinner I threw together.

Last but not least, one of the prettiest pizzas I've ever made. This will be important evidence when my book comes out because I rag pretty hard on certain countries for not being able to produce a decent pizza. I should at least know how to make one myself if I'm going to criticize others.

Here's how it turned out. Bellissima.

That's it for now! I have one more travel-related post to make, and then I think I'll just keep on updating this as a food blog. I'll also continue to post news about the book here, so stay tuned.

We made it

2008-08-19T12:04:00.000-07:00

We've been back in the states for a week and a half now, but since we don't really have a "home," it kind of still feels like we're traveling. We spent the first week or so with my parents, then we moved into a friend's condo -- which will be our home base for a while -- and then we promptly drove up to Crippen Creek for an extended weekend. So we're still on the same kind of pace we kept up during our trip... a new bed every three days or so.

And, surprise, we're still having problems with Picasa and the internet. I just spent half an hour selecting photos from our new camera only to discover that Picasa somehow froze while I was trying to upload them, erasing all my work. Argh.

When the rage passes, I will give it another shot.

Hasta Luego, Mexico

2008-08-06T10:59:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to think of a way to begin this post that isn't melodramatic, but failing miserably. So I guess I'll just go with this:

If then my fortunes can delight my friend,
A story fruitful of events, attend:
Another's sorrow may thy ear enjoy,
And wine the lengthened intervals employ.
Long nights the now declining year bestows,
A part we consecrate to soft repose,
A part in pleasing talk we entertain;
For too much rest itself becomes a pain.
Let those, whom sleep invites, the call obey,
Their cares resuming with the dawning days
Here let us feast, and to the feast be joined
Discourse, the sweetest banquet of the mind;
Review the series of our lives, and taste
The melancholy joy of evil past:
For he who much has suffered, much will know;
And pleased remembrance builds delight on woe.

That's from the Odyssey, an epic travel story to be sure, but one which clearly pales in comparison to the adventures had by yours truly at Viva Robusto.

Why all the drama? In case you didn't already know, tomorrow is our last day in Mexico City. After 10 long months of travel, we're finally flying back home to Portland, Oregon.

It's been wonderful and horrible, epic and boring, blah blah blah. I can't do any justice to our experience in this forum. All I can do is post some more pictures and make a few comments. Meanwhile I'm organizing and condensing my thoughts into a taut, hilarious 80,000 words that will hopefully become a book.

With both our friends (Jenny and Karyn) arriving in Oaxaca, we spent the last few days there in quiet reflection for our upcoming beach time.

After a particularly horrific night bus ride (that was supposed to be the less curvy of the two available routes), we arrived in San Augustinillo.

We didn't have a reservation, but by pure luck we managed to get two affordable rooms in a very nice beachfront location.

Liz was impressed by our color coordination.

Although the surf was pretty rough, it was a mellow, picturesque beach.

The 2nd best pizza we've found in Mexico, which, as a country, has the 2nd best pizza in the world. That we've found so far.

Our game of frisbee was cut short when I jumped onto some kind of rock or sharp piece of wood with my bare foot. The cut was surprisingly small, but my toe now has a sizeable lump on one side. I think I may have broken it or caused some kind of bone spur.

Liz and the girls took a boat tour out in the ocean early one morning to see dolphins, turtles and manta rays. It sounded cool, but I knew there would be puking involved so I decided to sleep in. I won't say who did and who didn't, but two of the three of them puked. On the plus side, they did get to see turtles having sex.

And a downed drug plane that for whatever reason has been left untouched for years. That's so "Lost."

Another day we headed to a calmer beach so Jenny and Karyn could surf and boogie board.

This is why I retired from such activities.

Afterward we made our way up to a beachside restaurant for ceviche and cacahuates (peanuts) with fresh lime and chili. So good, and so messy.

Another beachside dinner.

Another boat tour, this time to check out the turtle reserve in the neighboring town of Mazunte.

They also had a small pile of baby crocodiles.

Coconut meat with lime, salt and chili. I wasn't around for this snack but I am told it was excellent.

Next stop: Puerto Escondido and the "Mexican Pipeline," a popular surfing spot for more than half a century.

You can't swim there without a board, so we made sure to get a spot with a pool.

The dangerous waters.

Relaxing at the beach is actually pretty hard work. Sometimes you gotta take five.

Our last evening before Jenny and Karyn went their separate ways.

Puerto was kind of touristy, and the beach wasn't particularly nice for sitting on, but we did get some killer sunsets.

After Jenny and Karyn moved on, we spent another day or so in Puerto before heading out to our last beach destination. I'm not sure if I should name the beach we visited here on the internet or keep it a secret. It wasn't my favorite beach in the world, but apparently it's paradise for surfers. Kind of an unknown spot with great waves... a place where you can get two long sessions in every day without fighting any crowds for position in the water.

We enjoyed our time there, but it was a little bit rustic for my taste. We stayed in a sand-floor bungalow right on the beach and I didn't shower for 6 days.

Liz actually slept in a hammock right on the beach, which has been a dream of hers for a while. Every morning at dawn she woke up just long enough to take a photo of the sunrise.

At least there were several cute puppies around during the day to keep us occupied while most people were out surfing.

The food was a little bit of a weak point, unfortunately. It's pretty much all seafood, which sounds great, until you consider having it three times a day for a week. The "restaurant" at our cabanas was pretty reasonable and served decent pescado and filete; I just got tired of it after a few days.

The one time I sought out and found a taco stand that served beef ended in unspeakable tragedy, but I won't elaborate on that now. Instead, here's a picture of the tangy charred fish al ajo (with garlic) that we ate most of the time.

One of the wandering vendors, selling everything from toys to tamales.

If you want a beach to yourself, this is the spot to visit.

My finest hour. Nursing a Fresca the morning after drinking too much of the local mezcal.

Liz's bed.

One of the girls that "worked" at our cabana, pictured with one of the puppies.

Their baby, eating filthy sand.

Back in Puerto, one last magnificent sunset before our bus ride back to Oaxaca.

That's it for photos. We have a handful more that are still on the camera, but our camera finally died completely, so we haven't been able to take many in Mexico City.

Our next post will be made from within the borders of the United States! Until then...

Giving this a shot...

2008-07-21T14:10:00.000-07:00

Well, I was finally able to upload the photos to Picasa, but it took so long that I ran out of time to actually write a post.

So now, about a week later, we're in Puerto Escondido. We spent a handful of days at San Augustinillo and now we´ve found a nice little place here at the south end of Zicatela beach. However, I am posting this from a crappy internet cafe computer, so I won´t make any promises at this point about the length and/or quality of the post. This keyboard is terribly annyoing to type on, but I´ll do my best.

Back in Oaxaca, Liz and I took a quick daytrip up into the mountains to visit a park. I believe it´s actually in a separate town called San Felipe, but don´t quote me on that.

It was colorful, but cloudy, up there.

The clouds were bad news because I heard there were some decent basketball courts up there.

Still, I played through the rain and dominated. Still got it.

Actually the hoops were terrible and I was the only one there. The rims were about 7 feet tall and lacking nets, of course. I´m standing flat footed in that picture.

It did end up raining quite a bit, so it wasn´t long before we were on our way back down the hill to our apartment. This is our deceptively shitty-looking front door.

Another day trip, this time up to Hierve el Agua. That means "boiling water," roughly, but the water that naturally "boils" out of the ground here isn´t warm at all.

It forms several air-temperature pools near the edge of a cliff with spectacular views.

The minerals in the water create this kind of melted wax look as it cascades over the edge.

We actually planned on spending the night in a cabana up here, but were told that they were all full. Then, about thirty seconds before we were going to leave, after we had already boarded the truck, we were told differently. It was too late... we refuse to commit to a room unless we´ve seen it, and if we left the truck at that point we would have lost our ride. So we went back home.

A few more pics.

I think this is actually a blue agave cactus. I posted a pic of one before that I now believe was a different variety. This is (probably) the real deal.

No idea what variety this one is, unless "big ass" is a variety of cactus.

Yet another day trip, to the rug-weaving village of Teotitlan. Here the proprietors of a mom and pop outfit show us how the red dye for their rugs is actually made out of a type of fungus that grows on cactii.

Ok, here´s the story behind this shot. This guy is basically a mascot for the pharmacy a few doors down from our apartment. He gets paid to dance out on the street corner all day long. To promote the pharmacy. Obviously. Walgreens, are you paying attention?

Probably the fanciest restaurant in Oaxaca, Los Danzantes.

We went overbudget to check this place out one night. Great atmosphere, highly professional service, but the food was just OK. I mean, I had a steak for $17 that was about half the size and almost, but not quite as good as the ones we got for $9 in Argentina. Meanwhile, Liz had a lasagna that was advertised to come with spinach, but instead came with peas. She became violently ill the next day. Make of that what you will.

Happier times, before the peas arrived.

Our friend Jenny finally showed up and jumped straightaway into Mexican culture.

Another day trip up to hike in the San Felipe area. Foiled by rain, unfortunately. Everyone we spoke to advised us against taking the actual trail once we got there. So we just walked around a bit, took a few pictures, and headed back to town.

Few shots around town.

Liz and Jenny ran into some kind of bizarre parade with giant statues one evening.

Mayan ruins up at Monte Alban.

They had a monument to some guy who was important to the excavation of the park, or something. The important thing here is that he looked exactly like Kim Jong Il.

Mutant love.

All right, I can´t stand being in this internet cafe another minute, so that´s all for this update. I may post one more time in Mexico City. And then, when we get back home, I´ll add one last batch of photos, a video and some final thoughts. Until then!

Google broke the internet

2008-07-14T17:14:00.000-07:00

Well, I was all set to upload 34 new photos before we leave Oaxaca (and my laptop) behind. But Google Picasa isn't cooperating.

Unless I can figure out what's wrong in the next 3 hours you'll just have to wait, because we're boarding a bus for the coast at 11pm.

If you don't see any new posts tonight, we will update again around August 1.

Hasta luego,

Dan

Mezcalritaville

2008-06-30T14:15:00.000-07:00

Thought we'd check in again from Oaxaca before we head to the beaches and, ultimately, back home.

If the content has been a little thin, I apologize. Truthfully I needed some time to unwind from all the traveling we'd done, so I haven't really been up for doing much here in Oaxaca. I've mostly been sitting around working on my book, playing a little bit of poker again, looking forward to coming back to Portland.

However, we've been more active in the past week or so. Oaxaca is growing on me more and more as we find new favorite places to eat and hang out.

Backing up a few weeks, here's a picture of the teachers' protest that marched down our street. When we arrived in Oaxaca, the zocalo (town center) was overtaken with striking teachers. Here's the short version of the story: The teachers have been striking every year for a long time. A few years ago (2006), the government cracked down and there was a huge riot and massacre.

Since then, little has changed. The same people are still in power in Oaxaca, and the teachers still strike every year. The march was the culmination of weeks of camping out in the zocalo, and was scheduled on the same day as the riots a few years back. Nobody knows if the government will crack down again, but for this year anyway, the march was allowed to continue in peace.

It's not as dangerous as it sounds, especially for tourists. Now the teachers are out of the zocalo and everything is back to normal. Anyway, here are some of the protesters as seen from our balcony.

One day we took a collectivo up to Tlacolula de Matamoros to do a little shopping in the market. This poor kid is going to be goat-phobic for the rest of his life.

Almost bought this.

Did buy this.

As I mentioned, Oaxaca does feel completely safe. But you do see an awful lot of dudes with giant machine guns. The picture is terrible, I know, but I didn't want to get caught taking a picture of a guy with an M-16 who probably didn't want his photo taken.

On the way back from Tlacolula we stopped in El Tule to visit the largest tree in Latin America.

It's big.

And we tried some of the nieve, which is a bit like a snow cone. A little sweet for our palates, though.

This is Marta, one of the two cats that live here. She has been acting a lot like Ash -- trying to get into our bed at night, and sleeping on our clothes in the daytime.

Dinner at the pozoleria near our apartment. I'll let wikipedia explain what pozole is:

Pozole is a traditional pre-Columbian soup or stew from Mexico. It is made from hominy, with pork (or other meat), chile, garbanzo beans and other seasonings and garnish, such as cabbage, lettuce, oregano, radish, cilantro, avocado, lime juice, etc. There are a number of variations on pozole, including blanco (white or clear), verde (green), rojo (red), de frijol (with beans), and elopozole (sweet corn, squash, and meat).

You can also see some tacos de carnitas (rolled) in the background. Altogether this meal was around $11.

Garcia Vigil, the main tourist drag, pictured on a quiet night.

A few shots from a concert and dance in the zocalo.

After the first band played (classical music), we went to get some lunch. They were showing the next band on TV live as we ate.

The biggest ants I've ever seen. Apparently these guys only come out once or twice a year, but we've been lucky enough see them twice already. They're pretty slow-moving and apparently not a threat to bite. In fact, when they do come out, people collect them by hand to eat later. Yum.

Not everything is cheap here, but limes sure are. 20 will run you about $1. Cheap limes + "Controy" (fake Mexican Cointreau) + tequila = great margaritas.

In El Chaltan, Argentina, Liz met up with Marlene (left) from Denmark. Turns out she was coming to Mexico too, and she and Liz have stayed in touch. We met up for margaritas and dinner at La Olla.

It really is a pretty town despite the graffiti, noise and pollution.

It's not uncommon to stumble upon a random dance practice out in public.

Liz knows a cool Vespa when she sees one.

She's also been volunteering a bit of time at a center for kids here. This little dude is really working hard on his watercolor.

Balloons are big here.

This is a tlayuda from the Farmer's Market.

Again, I'll let wikipedia do the honors.

Tlayudas, sometimes spelled Clayuda (IPA /kla'ʝuð̞a/), is a part of Mexican Cuisine, consisting of a big crunchy tortilla covered with a spread of refried beans, asiento (unrefined pork lard), lettuce, meat (usually shredded chicken, beef tenderloin and/or pork), Oaxaca cheese or other cheese, and salsa. They are a popular antojito, or snack food, in Oaxaca, particularly around Oaxaca City.

Here's where we get flowers every week.

Liz with her Spanish teacher.

A few shots from a nearby museum. I didn't go. I just find it hard to get enthused about another museum or waterfall or cultural event at this point. But apparently it was quite scenic.

One thing I am enthused about: mezcal. I wrote a little about it in the previous post, but basically it's a variant of tequila that they produce in the Oaxaca region. I've tried probably eight or nine different varieties and haven't been disappointed yet. Like tequila, it's made from blue agave cactus (maguey en espanol).

Not sure if these are blue agave cactii or not, but they sure look like it.

And here's the best mezcal I've tried so far. It only costs $5.85 for a liter, but I think it tastes better than Patron or Don Julio.

And it has a worm!

That's all I've got for now. We're heading to Hierve el Agua tomorrow, and our friend Jenny arrives on Saturday. So the next update should be even more action-packed. Until then...

The Home Stretch

2008-06-17T08:30:00.000-07:00

San Cristobal was a gorgeous little town. If it weren't for the rain -- and the projectile vomiting -- I would have enjoyed spending more time there.

A few shots from one of the clear days.

I hope these weren't the tacos that made me sick, because they were delicious.

Argentina has their dog-head mannequins; Mexico has... this.

Colorful local market in San Cristobal. We wandered right into the crowded, stinking depths of this thing. It's remarkable how similar it felt to the markets in Asia. They even had pig faces for sale.

Here's how it looked most of the time in San Cristobal.

Finally, I recovered enough to handle a night bus and we made it to Oaxaca. Our apartment is incredible. It's right off one of the busiest roads in town -- only three blocks from the zocalo -- but so peaceful and relaxing on the inside.

Look at those ceilings... you could fit a basketball court in there!

Perfect spot to really hunker down and work on my book. As you can see.

The shared courtyard.

And our own little breakfast nook.

The view from our balcony. This was some kind of graduation parade. About a week later we had another giant parade down the same street, this time a major protest against the local government.

Wish I could remember what this was called. The guacamole mellowed out the crisp, savory tortillas and carmelized topping perfectly.

Marta, one of the two cats that live here. Pictured capturing the largest moth I've ever seen. Honestly, it was almost like a bat.

Oaxaca is a little bigger and more polluted than I expected it to be. But the city is overflowing with character.

They repaint the buildings frequently to keep on top of graffiti.

Fresh corn tortillas, still hot from the oven. $0.80 for a kilo.

We are finally doing a better job living frugally and cooking most of our meals at home. Still, we plan on taking advantage of the world-renowned culinary scene here.

Here's the famous black mole.

And the red mole, with a side of white beans that were out of this world.

Another new favorite: mezcal. It's Oaxaca State's answer to tequila -- a strong alcoholic beverage made from blue agave. But we're finding that you get a little bit more for your money with mezcal than you do with tequila. Even the cheapest mezcals taste as complex and -- I'm not sure what the right word is... peaty? -- as more expensive tequilas.

In other news, the Spanish-speaking and book-writing, respectively, are going pretty well. Liz is studying with a private instructor about 15 hours a week, and I'm nearly achieving my goal of 1,000 words a day on the book.

The basketball-playing, however, is going poorly. If I walk 20 minutes to a rotting old court with no nets I can usually get a game of 1 on 1 going against a 4'11" guy. It's exercise, I guess (we're at 2,000 meters here so I always get winded), but it gets old really fast when you can literally block every single shot your opponent takes and score 100% of the time on them. I have to take it super easy on people just to stay interested in the game, and that's no fun.

We have about 4 more weeks here in our apartment, and then we'll head to the Oaxacan coast with a few of Liz's friends that are coming down to visit.

And then we'll be just about done with the trip. Catch up with you again soon!

It's Pronounced "Wa-Ha-Ka"

2008-06-09T14:23:00.000-07:00

Well, we've finally arrived at the destination I've been dreaming about for the past six months: Oaxaca.

Why have I been so anxious to get here? Well, the city has a lot going on, and it's known for great food, but neither of those reasons fully covers it.

I was looking forward to Oaxaca because getting here meant that we'd almost be done riding buses, boats, trains and planes. We'll be planted in the same spot for the next six weeks, and then we just have a few more destinations to hit before flying back home.

And it turns out, we're in a great spot for hanging out. Our apartment is the nuts. We'd seen a few pictures, but they don't really do justice to the lush, jungle-like shared courtyard or 20-foot ceilings in our place.

We also didn't realize we'd be getting our own kitchen/dining area.

Back to the blog stuff: We left off in Tulum, where Liz booked a cave snorkeling tour one afternoon.

A bit of bad news first: Our camera is failing. It's too late in the trip to buy another one, since we have a brand-new digital SLR sitting at home waiting for us. We'll just have to make do for the next two months; we can still take pictures, but the exposure control is really goofy now.

So, apologies in advance, but this was the best shot we could get of the caves.

From Tulum, the next point of interest was Chichen Itza, a major Mayan ruin. But instead of forking over $$$$$$ to stay near the ruins, we stayed about half an hour away in a cute colonial town called Valladolid, home of the biggest Mexican flag I've ever seen in my life.

Just had to capture one of these for the blog. Thank god this kind of advertising is illegal in the states.

More Valladolid.

One of my new favorite Mexican foods: Cochinita Pibil. It's a type of slow-roasted pork -- a lot like Carnitas (except Carnitas are fried). Usually served with bright pink onions, tortillas and lime.

We had one night in Valladolid before heading off to see the ruins. We met up with a friendly German girl on the bus who told us about some kind of local dancing exhibition, so we checked it out.

They did the "Mexican hat dance" and also plenty of dancing with bottles and trays on their heads. I was hoping for some kind of Pee Wee Herman "Tequila" dance, but left disappointed.

The next morning we caught a ride with another American that was staying at our hotel. We wanted to beat the crowds to avoid another Angkor Wat catastrophe where we found ourselves fighting through tour groups all day.

And, we succeeded. We blitzed through the ruins in record time and were back on the bus to Valladolid before lunchtime. Here's the main attraction, which is somewhat anticlimatically located right near the entrance.

The German girl doing something silly.

The old ball court. This is where the Mayans played a primitive sport that involved knocking a ball through a hoop using their hips, knees and elbows. Human sacrifice usually followed the games, although nobody is certain if the losers or winners (or both) were offered up.

If you look closely at this wall, you can see the ring that served as the goal.

This is actually where they kept some of the remains (heads? skulls?) of the victims.

They also tossed a lot of human sacrifices into this deep pit of water. Just like in Army of Darkness.

And they played a really slow version of tic-tac-toe. Man, the guy who had X in this game got eternally owned.

Random ruin shot.

Does this remind you of anyone? Specifically, does this remind you of anyone in the Speranza family?

Next stop: The surface of the sun. I mean, Merida. Possibly the hottest place we've been on this trip. It was a nice town, but MAN. I don't know how people live there, let alone how they hang out with their friends on park benches.

Some guy told us that this was the oldest church in Mexico.

We only stayed in Merida on our way to Palenque. Palenque is another famous ruin site. Again, we stayed in a place (El Panchan) just outside the ruins rather than in Palenque town (supposed to be horrible) or at one of the uber-fancy resorts right next to the ruins.

El Panchan turned out to be a microscopic hippie enclave in the middle of the jungle. But we found very un-hippie-like lodging at Ed and Margarita's Cabanas. This place was meticulously clean and super luxurious as far as jungle lodging goes.

Some of the flora and fauna around our place.

This is the real-deal jungle, too. It buzzes constantly with insect activity, and you can even hear howler monkeys on occasion. They sound like [censored] scary monsters, and if you didn't know better, you might be terrified.

Many of the ruins at Palenque are still buried under the jungle. Here's what's been excavated.

They discovered a body in this tomb that had been treated with cinnabar (hence the red).

The next day we took a half-day trip to check out Agua Azul and another minor waterfall.

First, the minor waterfall.

Agua Azul. This is just a small part of the falls. It's not Iguazu or anything, but it is a fairly large series of falls.

It's actually dangerous not to swim here.

More views.

This guy is crazy. The water is like 3 feet deep where he's jumping in. It must be deeper during the rainy season.

We swam to the same spot earlier. Nice place, but not necessarily worth the ridiculously dangerous collective ride to get there.

After Palenque, we went to San Cristobal de las Casas, where I became violently sick from something other than drinking for the first time in 20 years. We have only a handful of pictures from the town, as I spent most of our time there in bed, and heavy rain kept Liz confined mostly to the hostel as well. Still, I'll get them up soon.

Update on the book: I've got between 17,000 and 18,000 words done (about 50-55 pages), and I'm trying to write 1,000 a day until we leave Oaxaca.

Also, for what it's worth, it's completely different than the blog. Here I'm just trying to loosely narrate a series of pictures so people can follow along with our trip. The book will tell a lot of the stories that can't be captured on film, in more detail, more polished, and hopefully, funnier.

That's all for now; catch up with you again soon.

T-Shirts, Anyone?

2008-06-07T08:43:00.000-07:00

I've long been considering making Viva Robusto T-Shirts. Anyone interested?

If so, what are your thoughts on this design, and how much do you think is a reasonable price? (Note: The back reads "www.vivarobusto.com," which will soon be the new URL for this site).

Leave your thoughts in the comments section and we'll see if there's enough interest.

More Mexico content coming soon!

Que Onda Mexico?

2008-05-30T15:20:00.000-07:00

As promised, I'm going to get caught up with everything before we get buried like we did in Argentina.

So, right now, we're in San Cristobal. Tomorrow night we take a night bus (our first in Mexico) to Oaxaca, where we'll spend the next six weeks.

Before we left Argentina, I had one final order of business to attend to: I was starting to look like a damn hippie, and I needed to correct the situation with a haircut and a shave. I keep letting my beard grow out while we travel because if I shave it all the way off, my skin gets irritated. And I hadn't cut my hair since the unfortunate near Bic job that the Thai lady gave me back on Khao San Road.

So I got an Argentine mullet.

All right, it's not really a mullet, but it's just a bit longer in the back than I usually find acceptable. Oh well. At least I don't look like an extra from Dazed and Confused anymore.

Our flight from Buenos Aires to Mexico City was pretty awful, but here's the reason it was all worth it: My first taste of tacos in Mexico. Even though these were just from some crappy stand at the airport, they were awesome.

We spent one night in Cancun, checked out the beach, found that it sucked unless you were paying $$$$ to stay at an all-inclusive, and quickly decided to head to Isla Mujeres.

Here's what we found there:

The beach at Isla Mujeres is spectacular.

Truly, it rivals even the best beaches we found in Thailand.

The only downside is that here we paid $40 per night for our room. In Thailand we probably averaged under $20.

The food, of course, was terrific. I've been craving Mexican food for so long (I've never gone this long without it before), I think I ate 19 tacos in the first two days.

These were particularly delicious. Asada, Pollo and Camarones.

This was a quesadilla, which was deep-fried and not all that good. I'm posting the picture because it's the first time I've ever ordered food that came with a plate emblazoned with a pithy, accurate review of the food it was holding. Unimpressive.

Ceviche. So good.

I was really close to buying the "Who cares asshole" T-shirt.

This dude scampered out of nowhere and scared the crap out of us. They're harmless, though. That is, if you consider flying, acid-spitting death lizards harmless.

I'm kidding, they really are harmless (I think).

This was a nice beachside snack: roasted pumpkin seeds with fresh lime, salt and chili. Really excellent, we will try to recreate this at home as an appetizer.

Just another ridiculous sunset.

Finally, a country that plays basketball! Manu Ginobili aside, it was near impossible to find a court, let alone a court with players, in Argentina. In Mexico they're everywhere. I gave these 4'1" 9 year-olds the schooling of their lifetime.

Nice dinner on Isla Mujeres with the largest portion of guacamole ever. That bowl was heaping when it arrived.

Our next stop: Isla Holbox (pronounced "holbosh"). It's less touristy and more mellow than Isla Mujeres, but strangely more expensive.

Food wasn't as good either, but we did find a place with pretty sharp margaritas.

And the hottest sauce known to man. The guy asked me if I wanted "salsa picante," and when I said yes, this is what he brought. WOW. After dinner he told me how it's made. Basically you puree habanero peppers with olive oil, salt and garlic.

Apparently a lot of the structures on the island were destroyed by a hurricane within the last decade, but you'd hardly know it. There were lots of colorful buildings with this kind of faded cool character.

People in Mexico drink a LOT of soda. They consume more Coke than any other country in the world per capita.

It's my dog in a box!

Next stop: Tulum. The beaches here are a lot like those at the Oregon coast: wide, with strong waves. The only difference is that it's 90+ degrees here so you can actually swim.

Although the conditions aren't quite as ideal as they are at Isla Mujeres, the setting is still postcard perfect.

There are also ancient Mayan ruins overlooking part of the beach.

Those Mayans really had the best real estate of all the indigenous peoples.

That's it for now. We're not completely caught up, but we're getting there. I should have plenty of free time in Oaxaca, so you can expect more within the week.

Until then, adios!

Final Argentina Post

2008-05-23T08:14:00.000-07:00

Picking right up...

With the coca tea in our systems, we rallied the rest of the drive back to Salta and managed to get the car fueled and returned in time to grab lunch and buy tickets to Tucuman and, eventually, Iguazu.

Before we knew it, we were on an Andesmar bus with full Cama seats! We had tried to purchase Cama seats on our first overnight bus ride to Puerto Madryn, and did in fact pay Cama prices, but when the bus arrived, it only had Semi-Cama available. Since then, it had been all Semi-Cama, all the time. Too bad our first Cama ride was only going to be 5 hours long.

We arrived in Tucuman and grabbed a taxi to our hostel. There's a story there, but you'll have to wait for the book for this one. At our hostel, they were out of bedsheets for our private room, so we got a partial refund and moved to an empty dorm. The next day, at around noon, we got on another bus for Iguazu, perhaps our seventh or eighth 20-hour bus ride of the trip.

I was clean shaven at the start of the bus ride.

When we arrived in Iguazu the following afternoon the weather was cloudy and we were exhausted, so we decided to save the falls for the next day. We drank tons of Quilmes with an international crew of travelers at our hostel, then went out for asada. We made it home relatively early... one or two of the guys (including a funny Australian guy who spoke immaculate Spanish and knew all the Buenos Aires-specific slang) didn't get back until 4 or 5am.

We sort of partnered up with a German couple, grabbed a bus to the falls and headed straight for the Garganta Del Diablo. If you've been paying attention, you'll remember that that was also the name of the rock formation we visited up near Salta.

Approaching the largest single waterfall at Iguazu... you can see the mist rising all the way out of the crater from the force of impact on the rocks below.

There were still pieces remaining from an old, busted catwalk, next to the one we were walking on. This was reassuring.

Our first views of the edge.

Some facts about Iguazu from wikipedia:

- The waterfall system consists of 275 falls along 2.7 kilometers.

- The peak surface area of water falling over Iguazu is 1.3 million square feet. By comparison, Niagara is about 600,000 square feet.

- At one point a person can stand and be surrounded by 260 degrees of waterfalls.

So here it is, the Garganta del Diablo. A huge freaking wall of water.

I think this sign warns about kayaking over the side.

Trying to take in the whole thing at once. If you stare directly at it you almost get dizzy. It feels like something that big shouldn't be moving like that.

The German couple we toured the falls with.

The falls aren't the only attraction. The park around Iguazu is known for a great variety of flora and fauna as well.

OF COURSE.

And then there are these guys, the "coaties." They're kind of anteater-ish beaver/raccoon/cat things that prowl the park in search of tourists dumb enough to feed them.

They don't have to look far.

Thanks to the abundant supply of food, these guys are everywhere and totally fearless.

This poor lady dropped her bag for one second and the coaties were all over it. Luckily some old man knew to make a scary cat sound which frightened them all away.

Later her son was taunting one of the coaties with a piece of food and it started climbing all over his legs and up his torso, giving him a nasty scratch in the process. Hope you didn't get rabies, kid.

Back to the falls. After the Garganta, we did both the upper and lower loop hikes. It's difficult to capture the range of waterfalls, but we tried our best. Just imagine waterfalls as far as the eye can see.

Looking down on the lower catwalk from the upper one.

One of the larger falls (other than the Garganta). Check out the people on the platform about halfway down for scale.

After a full day at the falls, we bused back to town, grabbed a quick dinner and boarded our last 20-hour bus ride in Argentina.

The face of victory:

And with this post, we're almost caught up. We spent a handful of days in Buenos Aires, mostly repairing the damage Aerolineas Argentinas caused to our itinerary, and now we're in Mexico. Mexico updates to come in short order.

Free Salt!

2008-05-19T18:42:00.000-07:00

Picking right up in San Antonio de los Cobres. We had almost given up on even getting any kind of a decent breakfast (potato chips and Oreos from the corner store don't count) when we stopped by the one nice hotel in town to ask for directions. And lo and behold, they were serving a pretty nice breakfast that we were allowed to partake of.

Then it was right back on the road. It was another slow, gravelly stretch, but at least there were plenty of donkeys to keep us amused.

First stop: the salt flats. We thought we overshot the entrance when we lost sight of them in the distance, but then we rounded the bend and saw that they were much bigger than we had first imagined.

Salt, as far as the eye can see! Piles and piles of it. In Argentina, first you get the salt, then you get the power, then you get the women.

Seriously, free salt! Grab your shovel!

If I have driven just one salt miner to our website with this carving, then it was all worth it.

After playing in the salt for a while, we hit the next stretch of road, paved thankfully, up to Purmamarca. Again the scenery was otherworldly.

And Purmamarca turned out to be a great little town. It's nice and quaint, with a spectacular backdrop of vibrant red, yellow and green rocks. We didn't get a great picture of the rocks, unfortunately, but we did get a few pics of our spectacular lunch. First up, five different empanadas. I think they were llama, carne, pollo, queso and... something else I can't remember. The llama was best.

And then I splurged and ordered the lomo de llama. This was really good... extremely juicy and tender like a nice cut of pork. And the flavor was excellent. Salty, tangy, savory. The cheese was kind of a semi-firm goat cheese that was a nice, soft complement to the tanginess of the llama. And the potatoes were nice too. This was one of the top 3 meals I had in Argentina.

Liz, meanwhile, had some quinoa fritters that were good in their own right, if not as spectacular as my dish.

There was a nice outdoor market with local crafts, and Liz picked up a little something for our future house (not from among these, though).

One of the signs advertising coca leaves. I think they're technically illegal, but the locals in northern Argentina get away with chewing them quite frequently. "Bica" is bicarbonate soda, or baking soda (I think). I think you use a little of it to mellow out the leaves, or something.

Purmamarca was only a quick lunch stop, next we headed north to Tilcara and Humahuaca. We breezed through Tilcara pretty quickly, then decided to go all the way to Humahuaca and decide from there where we wanted to spend the night.

The views, again, were worth all the driving.

When it came time to secure a hostel, we decided on Tilcara over Humahuaca. And we just grabbed the first place we looked at because we were tired and everything was expensive. Then we looked a little closer at the place we had rented. Ugh.

That night we went to one of the fanciest restaurants in town because they had a roaring fire. The food was a little weird, though. This was supposed to be a quesadilla. Uh.... what?

I ordered llama again, thinking of my awesome lunch, and got this. The llama itself wasn't bad, but the rest was disappointing. On the left, that's just chopped tomatoes with four potato chips sticking out of it. And the green stuff was mashed peas... disgusting.

The next day on our way back to Salta, we stopped in Purmamarca for breakfast. And coca tea! Liz found it a little odd at first, but I liked the taste and thought it was actually quite mild. No dramatic side effects, sorry to report.

From Salta we blitzed on through to Iguazu falls. And now I have to renege on my promise in the previous post. I said I'd get all the Argentina stuff up right now, but it's already 9pm and I've been sitting in this cafe for like 3 hours. We have a billion shots from Iguazu, so it's just going to have to wait. Until then...

Tulum, Too Late

2008-05-19T16:55:00.001-07:00

So much for finishing all our Argentina posts before leaving Argentina. With all our difficulties making the flight to Mexico happen, we just couldn't get it together to make a post.

Here's the story: When we bought our tickets over 8 months ago, Aerolineas Argentinas offered a direct flight from Buenos Aires to Cancun. Since then they've canceled the route. In fact, they no longer fly to Mexico at all, as far as I could tell. So at some point, they made reservations on our behalf with Aero Mexico.

Unfortunately there were a few problems. First, instead of flying direct to Cancun during the daytime, our new itinerary had us flying overnight to Mexico City, waiting 10 hours, then catching a connection to Cancun. Secondly, and more importantly, they somehow managed to cancel our itinerary after making it for us.

I won't get into what a hassle it was calling Aerolineas and Aero Mexico over and over and being hung up on and transfered and not helped in any way, so just imagine pretty much the worst customer service ever and you'll get the idea. The final slap in the face came when Aerolineas told us to get to the airport at least 4 hours early (6pm) so we'd have time for Aero Mexico to issue us new tickets. Figuring we'd play it safe, we arrived 5 hours early, at 5pm, only to find that nobody from Aero Mexico would even be arriving at the airport until 8:30pm. Son of a [censored].

But we made it through our flights and around 36 hours later we found ourselves sitting on a beach eating tacos and drinking beer with lime, so we got over it.

Right now we're in Tulum. Mexico has been great so far and, as usual, we've been too busy to get caught up with Viva Robusto. But I promise to blitz through the rest of Argentina right now so we can start talking Mexico. And I'll post at least one photo from the last few days at the end of this update as a bit of a sneak preview.

Back to Argentina:

After the stunning drive to Cafayate, we headed north to Cachi. The scenery was radically different and nearly as amazing.

The brilliant blue sky didn't hurt.

It was another demanding drive, with lots of cliffs and hairpin turns and long stretches of gravel. But then we'd turn a corner and run into something beautiful.

And finally we made it to Cachi. Along with Purmamarca it was our favorite of the 7 or 8 towns we visited on this mini road trip. Just a dusty little town up in the mountains with good outdoor cafes and a handful of nice restaurants.

And a basketball court! I didn't get to play, but it was shocking to even find a court.

We had a lovely dinner, but no pics unfortunately. It was a little dark anyway, and we had forgotten the camera. I had Cabrito (a local goat dish), and Liz tried Locro (a corn dish), another specialty of the region. We made it an early night and hit the road the next morning for San Antonio de Los Cobres.

To get there, we first had to drive waaaaaaaaay up into the mountains and down the other side, almost all the way back to Salta, before turning sharply northwest on yet another beastly stretch of gravel road.

First, heading up.

I'm not sure what our exact altitude was, but we had a hard time catching our breath in Cachi, and this was significantly higher. At one point we drove right into a cloud that we wouldn't escape for almost two hours.

Also, we found this guy wandering around by himself near the peak of the pass.

He was friendly.

Perhaps overly so.

When we finally drove away, he chased us! Too bad we didn't have an apple or anything to feed him. I think he was hungry.

Finally we reached a rest stop on the other side of the mountain with a few llamas loitering outside.

The previous day we had stopped for a quick bite and it wound up taking well over an hour to get 4 simple empanadas. So it was with some reluctance that we ordered another 4 from the 80-some year old owners of this place. Luckily they were more efficient and had food on our table within half an hour. And these were really worth the wait.

The next stretch of the drive was mostly paved, but really windy. And because it had been raining some, we had to drive through a lot of pools leading to waterfalls on the edge of cliffs. Like this.

After shifting between first, second and third gear for approximately 6 hours, we finally made it to San Antonio de los Cobres. But before arriving in the town, we stopped at one of the highest points in the passes to take this shot. 4,080 meters is, of course, 13,385 feet. As a point of reference, Mount Hood is 11,249 feet tall. It was insane up here... too windy to even get out of the car. Hence the muddy-looking shot through the window.

All that effort, and San Antonio de los Cobres turned out to not be a very nice place. It was just a cold, dusty, windy town at over 3,700 meters that we needed to pass through on our grand loop through the Salta region.

It felt like what I imagine Afghanistan is like. All empty streets and piles of rubble.

I wolfed down a steak and papas in a dingy, smoky restaurant, then we picked up a few snacks and a small bottle of booze and hunkered down for the night in our tiny room.

That's all for right now. I need to upload the rest of the pics before I can continue. But to insure this update doesn't end on a depressing note, here's a more recent photo:

That was taken today, actually. More soon!

The Volkswagen Gol Diaries

2008-05-09T16:15:00.000-07:00

Diving straight into our time in the Salta region.

No, I have not been kidnapped. This is the best way to sleep on an overnight bus.

Our first (and only) afternoon in Salta, we headed out to check out the fancy restaurant and bar district up on Balcarce. But we got sidetracked by a local market. This part of the country feels different. Like Mexico or something. And we actually found some spicy food! These are called Humitas, and they're just like Tamales. They even had spicy salsa.

I mean, the food in this country is good, but outside of steak, wine and ice cream, it's a little bland. You almost never find pepper on the tables in restaurants, and when they tell you something is "picante," they are almost always lying.

This stuff had a legitimate amount of heat to it. So delicious.

It also appears to be more Catholic up here.

We were lucky to witness the start of a Quince. It's like a Quincinera (sp?) in Mexico, where they throw an elaborate bash to celebrate a girl's 15th birthday. This lucky girl made her entrance on the back of a motorcycle.

Seriously, the amount of money they must drop on these things is mind-boggling.

Later that night. This is the drunkest I have ever looked in a picture. I wasn't even drunk!

To prove it, I overcompensated in the next photo.

The next day we secured a rental car and hit the road. A Volskwagen Gol, which I think is identical to a Volkswagen Golf. Not sure why they drop the "F" in latin America. Anyway, the original plan was to hit Cafayate, Cachi and maybe Humahuaca before returning to Salta. We ended up extending the trip by 2 days and also visiting San Antonio De Los Cobres and Tilcara.

The scenery in this region really is out of this world. We did over 1200 km in about 4 days... but that's not all freeway driving. It was cliffside, twist-and-turn, high-altitude, dirt-road driving, and it ended up being the most demanding drive I've ever undertaken.

At the start of the trip, we discovered that there IS water on Mars.

The colors were incredibly striking.

The "Garganta del Diablo," the first of two "Gargantas" we would see on this trip. AKA, the throat of the devil. It was impossible to photograph properly as it was so large that the exposure never worked properly. Aim at the top and the bottom is too dark. Aim at the bottom and the top is washed out. This is the best we could do.

I'm posting this because Liz raved on and on about how well my shirt matched the background.

This one has a bit of scale. Lower left hand side.

And so does this one. Bottom center.

I'm hoping this makes the cover of a rock climbing magazine.

Liz has a shot as well.

That mountain in the middle was even greener in real life. Like the color of the Statue of Liberty. So weird!

Where did we leave the car?

Oh yeah, down there.

Apparently they also have trees on Mars.

We finally arrived in Cafayate after pulling over about 462 times appreciate the scenery. Unfortunately it was too late to visit most of the wineries, but this one was still open.

It was the most scenic winery either of us has ever seen.

But the wine wasn't so great. Their most expensive bottle on offer was 25 pesos ($7), and most bottles ranged from 6 pesos to 12. That's not to say you can't get a very solid bottle of wine for 12 pesos in Argentina; but these weren't up there among our favorites. We posed for this picture (and bought a 6-peso bottle of Torrontes) to be polite.

You didn't think there could be anything nastier than fried cockroaches or a mayonnaise waffle, did you? How about Tuna flavored ice cream?

We must have gotten the honeymoon suite... hence the sexy monopillow and satin-accented blanket.

It's getting late here; I'll try to wrap up the rest of these photos before we shove off tomorrow.

Last Tango in Buenos Aires

2008-05-09T14:25:00.000-07:00

Well, our bags are (nearly) packed and we're finally ready to move on from Argentina. If everything goes according to plan (and sadly, this is not an insignificantly-sized "if"), we'll be on a northbound flight to Mexico City tomorrow night with a connecting flight to Cancun on Sunday.

When we booked the trip, we were able to snag a direct flight from Buenos Aires to Cancun on Aerolineas Argentinas, but we should have known that itinerary was too good to be true. The troubled airline canceled the route and hooked us up with Aero Mexico instead. Only they also managed to cancel our itineraries at the same time. And the Aero Mexico flight isn't direct; we have to fly overnight to Mexico City and then sit in the airport for many hours before making our way to Cancun. [censored]

I've been sorting things out for the past three days, and I think we're finally good to go. This is assuming there is no massive incompetence on display at the Aerolineas counter tomorrow. We'll see.

So anyway, it's our last chance to post Argentina-related content while we're still in Argentina. Buckle up; I'm going to do my best to blast through all the rest of our photos.

We left off with our arrival in Mendoza. The wine capital of Argentina. Turns out it's also one of the crime capitals of Argentina. The streets there are a little tougher than the ones in Buenos Aires; Liz had to fend off a couple guys that were trying to snag one of our bags from right under her nose in the park. The idiots would have been disappointed to find that the bag they wanted was filled with nothing but dirty laundry, but it still would have sucked to lose most of my Thai T-shirt collection.

It was also hard to find a room. The first place we checked had a microscopic private room with one single bed and one bunk bed. We gambled that we would find something better and lost... having to settle for a dorm room with abysmal shower and toilet facilities all the way across town.

But the next day we finally found something good. Well, Liz did. A charming unlisted hostel just outside the really happening part of town with massive private rooms that were nicer than lots of hotel rooms we've found in the States. On top of that we had the best bathroom of the trip. Just imagine, the sheer luxury of having a tub so water doesn't pour all over the ground when you shower. Ahh.

The single must-do activity in Mendoza is wine touring. There are a couple of "tour agencies" that offer "guided" mountain bike tours, but we found this to be mostly a scam. Another American couple at our hostel paid something like 70 pesos each for their package, which included transportation. We took the bus for 1.4 pesos each, and rented bikes for 15 pesos each, so we came out 53.6 pesos ahead. Of course, our bikes were absolute rubbish, but then again, theirs were too.

Our first stop, at a winemaking museum that doubles as a fairly large capacity operating winery.

I think I'm ready to help out on the farm, Don.

The ride was actually kind of lame at first... there was lots of traffic, construction and pollution. But once you got a few kilometers down the road, it improved a bit.

This is actually inside some giant cauldron-esque wine-storage thing at the Familia di Tommasso winery.

Descending to the cellar.

The Tommasso winery put on an excellent tasting of 5 different wines for just 10 pesos a head.

My first taste of absinthe. In case you hadn't guessed, it's the mint-colored fluid that looks deceivingly light and refreshing. It actually tastes like Scope, as my friend Kyle said it would.

Baby clothes get baby bear head mannequins.

The other great attraction in Mendoza (in our eyes, anyway) is the Parque San Martin, a massive park on the edge of town where we spent a few afternoons reading, walking and just hanging out.

Just getting the name out there.

They have all this public exercise equipment there, most of which appears to be pull-up bars. We couldn't figure out what to do with this one, though.

After traveling such a great distance, we decided to spend almost a week in Mendoza. But Liz, of course, couldn't sit still that long. She booked a minibus trip up to see Aconcagua, the tallest mountain in the Andes.

This is apparently where they filmed "Seven Years in Tibet."

Here's some kind of Yellowstone-esque mineral deposit. I wasn't there to verify, but Liz swears that that was a normal sized building. It looks like a model to me for some reason.

And here's the merchandise. They leave objects out to get coated and then sell them as souvenirs.

More views:

These views are pretty neat-looking, but honestly we saw much more spectacular in the Salta region. Coming soon.....

Yet another country we came extremely close to physically but never visited. Chile.

Back in town at the Parque San Martin again, we found these two Ash-dogs that were going nuts over a plastic bag.

That's it for Mendoza. From there we took yet another overnight bus up to Salta. I'll see if I can't get the pictures uploaded and posted in the next few hours.

Apologies again

2008-05-07T12:59:00.000-07:00

Even though I finally managed to get at least one update posted, the blog is getting a little bit less attention these days than at the start of our trip. As I mentioned in the last update, that's partially because we've been busy and out of internet range, but it's also because I'm throwing my efforts pretty heavily behind my new book idea.

At the start of this trip I had the first 15 pages of a novel and an outline. Now I have in the neighborhood of 40 pages complete, and an even better outline. But, believe it or not, I'm putting that book on hold for the moment.

About a million people have asked me if I planned on writing a book about this trip, but I've been reluctant to do so because I dislike the way those kinds of books usually go.

But I finally had an idea about how I could frame a travel story that's (mostly) about this trip, and so far it's been going screamingly. I don't want to say too much more at the moment, but I will certainly keep everyone updated.

And don't worry; I haven't given up on Viva Robusto. I just can't give the best stuff away for free anymore. I'll still post tons of photos and keep you up to date on our travels, but I won't necessarily have time to go into great depth. We'll see how it goes.

Hope you stick with me... the photos I still have sitting in the docket are pretty spectacular, and those won't be available in the book.

Catching our breath

2008-05-03T09:35:00.000-07:00

Sorry we've gone so long without updating; we've been on the move so frequently that there hasn't been time. And we haven't had much internet access either.

Right now we're in Puerto Iguazu, a little town built around the tourist attraction of Iguazu Falls. We just arrived this morning; tomorrow we'll check out the falls (which are supposed to be bigger than Niagara).

Quick recap of what we've been up to: After El Chaltan, we took two consecutive 12-hour day buses to El Bolson. We spent a few days there, then just one night in Bariloche. From there we went to Mendoza and spent a week. After that, one night in Salta, then we rented a car and drove a 1200km loop over the course of 4 days. Obviously, we have a lot to catch up on.

Starting with El Bolson. Most people heading north from El Chaltan opt to go directly to Bariloche, a town that's famous for its chocolate and its supposed similarity to a Swiss village. But we'd read and heard good things about El Bolson (supposedly a laid-back hippie town with good trekking), so we got off the bus a few hours earlier than most of the rest of the passengers.

The town lived up to the hippie hype, and the weather was great to boot.

It wasn't quite as otherworldly as El Chaltan, but Bolson was plenty scenic in its own right.

We did one short-medium hike while we were in town, up to the "indian head." See if you can spot it.

View from the way down.

This was one of our favorite hostels so far. It's not unlike the Inn at Crippen Creek Farm, with a big great room on the main floor and much better kitchen facilities than you usually find.

El Bolson is part of Argentina's Lake District, so on our second day in town we rented mountain bikes and rode up to one of the lakes with Angela (pictured foreground), a woman we befriended at the hostel.

I'd like to say that we sat down to this after the ride, but it was some time later. Hot chocolate and Churros Rellenos (with dulce de leche, of course).

Awwww, poor Ash! Wait a minute....

The town reminded us a bit of Eugene... people relaxing in the park, a little market with lots of arts and crafts, plenty of Argentine hippies...

The things I try just so I can post about it here... this is a damn waffle with salami and cheese on it. It actually wasn't too bad.

Finally, onto Bariloche. When we arrived it was incredibly windy. The first thing we did (after booking a room) was walk down to the lake and check it out. We were surprised to find ocean-sized waves and whitecaps.

That thur's a real big tree hurrrrrrrrr? Seriously I have no idea why I'm posting this.

On our only full day in Bariloche, we hiked up to the refugio at Cerro Lopez. It was really steep, and the weather wasn't that great, but we were prepared. I'm pictured here with my cougar-smashing rock.

We still got some nice views along the way, even though it was cloudy.

Nothing hits the spot after a difficult hike like 8 beers. The sampler at Antares brewpub.

Liz basks in the afterglow of a downed pint and a bowl of peanuts.

When the mannequins don't have dog or tiger heads, they have this.

We finally broke down and went to a Mexican restaurant in Bariloche that had gotten good reviews. It was great; they even had homemade salsa and heaps of guacamole. But no chips.

The town mascot... one of those dogs with a bottle of booze around its neck. This one had a puppy sleeping on its back, but the owner was charging for pictures. This was the best we could get gratis.

There we go.

Finally, on our way to Mendoza.

On the bus we played Spanish bingo for a bottle of wine. So close!

Mendoza. Here's the park bench where Liz narrowly averted a scam designed to steal one of our bags.

More later! We have a billion pictures to catch up on, but we should have some down time in Buenos Aires.

Ice Ice Baby

2008-04-17T13:29:00.000-07:00

As the weather gets warmer and the folks back in Portland recover from one of the coldest, wettest, grayest winters in recent memory (or so we hear), it's going the opposite direction down here in the southern hemisphere. We went from moderately warm and sunny days in Puerto Madryn to rain, snow, wind and freezing temperatures in El Calafate, El Chaltan, El Bolson and now Bariloche.

However, we're almost done with our Patagonian circuit; we'll be taking an overnight bus up to Mendoza (wine country) within a day or two.

So what have we been up to?

Hiking, biking, riding buses and living in dorm rooms, almost exclusively.

We left off in El Calafate, where we were stuck without enough cash to book a bus ride to the Perito Moreno glacier. Finally on Monday, the bank refilled the ATM and I attacked it with a vengeance (4 max withdrawls). We left the next morning for the glacier. Sunrise at the bus station.

And here's the glacier, the main reason to visit El Calafate.

These aren't photoshopped; the ice really has this intense blueness to it, apparently from the minerals frozen inside.

We decided against hiking on the glacier, mostly because it was really expensive and would have blown our budget for 3 or 4 days in one shot. It was a lot cheaper to take the public bus to the park and view it from the balcony.

I'm just going to go ahead and keep posting pictures of the glacier, because it was downright stunning. My expectations were somewhat low because it was snowing heavily on the way in and I thought the visibility might be bad. Fortunately it cleared up for about an hour right during our prime viewing time.

On a clearer day, there are also mountains visible on the horizon. Oh well.

Although it is incredibly massive in real life, the glacier is not one of the largest in the area.

It is, however, one of the most active. This sucker moves and huge chunks fall off all the time. See that splash? Every time a piece falls off, even a small one, it sounds like someone just fired a cannon. Amazing.

Ok, see the ring of ice going out into the water in the background? A huge chunk broke off while we were watching and created this giant wave, which quickly slowed down and sort of "froze," in a way. It was really bizarre.

It started snowing again just before we left.

Last two.

When you could peel your eyes off the glacier, the surrounding area was pretty scenic in its own right.

On to non-glacier topics. Back in town, we decided to give pizza another chance. This was the best one I've had in Argentina (also the first time I've found pepperoni as a topping here), but still poor compared to our favorites in America. Too much cheese, too little sauce. The crust was very good.

From El Calafate we grabbed a late bus to El Chaltan. It was a bumpy ride... the road was mostly unpaved... but we did stop at a rest stop that had a llama chilling inside.

El Chaltan. One of the most amazing settings for a town I've ever seen. It reminded me a little of Yosemite... the place is just ringed with amazing cliffs and mountains. The entire town is under construction; in 5 or 10 years it will probably be like Whistler or Vail or something, but for now it's pretty small-time.

Looking back toward the town at the start of a 22km hike.

And here's our destination: Laguna Torres. On a clear day the view here is sick... there are awesome spires (torres=towers) visible on the horizon... but unfortunately it started snowing and raining about 20 minutes into our hike.

It was a bit cold up there.

Mr. Burny Tree sez: "Only YOU can prevent forest fires... by not throwing lit cigarettes into my crotch!"

We missed winter this year, so we're making the most of our 3-week version.

We woke up the next day and it was clear. Unfortunately my hamstring also exploded, so Liz was the only official Viva Robusto representative on this hike.

I really missed out.

We've done 3 hikes together in the past week; two were supposed to be spectacular, but it was cloudy. We had good weather for the third, but the scenery was nothing like this. Man!

I believe this set of peaks is called Fitz Roy.

Liz met a Danish girl on the hike (who took this picture).

Just looking at these photos is putting me on life tilt. I see what you people are talking about when you say you can't read our blog at work.

omg

You can actually drink the water straight from the streams up there!

At least I got to participate in the ordering of dulce de leche waffles afterward.

Gotta run now. We have more photos but not enough time to post or write more just yet. You'll hear from us next in Mendoza.

No place is ever perfect

2008-04-07T07:36:00.000-07:00

You knew it was coming. Argentina was sounding too good to be true, right?

Plus, we've complained to some degree about every other location we've visited on our trip; of course we would find fault with this country at some point.

On the whole, Argentina is a lot less frustrating than, say, Vietnam, but the country does have its annoying quirks. And now that we're kind of in the middle of nowhere, they're starting to rear their ugly heads.

It's funny, because the single most annoying thing about Argentina is something that every Asian country does extremely well: money.

Take ATMs. In Asia, they're everywhere. And they always work. Here, not so much. In San Telmo, for example, there are only three ATMs within easy walking distance. One of them is broken, another is hidden inside a gas station with no signage to indicate that it's there. The remaining single ATM that's highly visible and close to the center of the neighborhood almost always has a line of anywhere from 2 to 10 people, and it frequently runs out of money! Oh yeah, it doesn't have an option for the English language, either.

Additionally, most banks in Buenos Aires close for a siesta at around 2pm. You'd think you would still be allowed to use the ATM, since it's in a separate facility within the bank building, but nooooooooooo. Three different security guards at three different banks actually finger-wagged me when I tried to swipe my card to access the ATM chamber one day.

This sounds ridiculous, but I would honestly estimate that my success rate at actually withdrawing money on any given ATM visit is hovering at around 10%.

Another annoying thing about the money here is that stores never have any of it. That is, they never want to give you change. Just today, I tried to purchase a pair of fingernail clippers and some lotion for 23 pesos. I gave the lady 25 pesos, which is damn close to exact change if you ask me. She gave me sort of an exasperated look and asked for exact change. I said no. She rustled around in the cash register for a moment, then said she didn't have the correct change. We're talking a single 2-peso note, or a handful of coins. This is a clean, brightly-lit pharmacy in the middle of a super-touristy town, not some dingy hut in Asia (where, I might add, they will ALWAYS have change!) And forget about trying to break a 100-peso note on anything less than about 75 pesos. The cashier will give you a look like you just asked them to sell you their first-born child.

So, to sum up, it's a pain in the ass to get money, and equally difficult to spend it.

Argentina, take a hint from Asia: People want to spend money in your country. Make it easier for them!

Extremo Sur

2008-04-06T06:59:00.000-07:00

It's only been a couple weeks since our last post -- not an unusual stretch of time to go without updating the blog -- but we have a lot to catch up on. Unfortunately the internet connection is really poor at the moment, so I'll post as much as I can while it lasts.

Right now we're in a small town called El Calafate in Patagonia. Look it up on a map... we're almost as far south as you can get without being in Antarctica. We went from Buenos Aires to Puerto Madryn for a few days, then as far south as Rio Gallegos, before deciding on El Calafate over Ushuaia (the southernmost city in the world).

But before we get into all that, let's go back to La Boca. We need to talk about this so-called derivative of farinata, faina.

And there it is. Pretty innocent looking. To be honest, it wasn't terrible, just extremely bland. I had to blanket it with salt to make it edible. Of course, the portenos use faina as an accessory to pizza, soaking up the grease (and therefore flavor) before consuming it.

So why didn't we order pizza, you ask? Ah, but we did! This was at a restaurant called Banchero in La Boca. The place has been around for a long time, and claims to serve Italian-style pizza and "faina a la Genovese." Don't be fooled. File this under the "most disappointing meal ever."

We ordered the faina and pizza a la piedra (thin crust) with spinach and white sauce. I guess I was thinking the "white sauce" would be cheese, but it wasn't. It was bechamel sauce... a thick mush with the consistency of mashed potatoes and the taste of... well... not much. And the spinach... let me tell you about the spinach. We should have realized it would be terrible, because this wasn't the first time we tried spinach in Buenos Aires. For what it's worth, I love spinach back home... sauteed, in salads, whatever... it's one of my favorite vegetables. Here, it tastes like dirt. We made a salad with spinach one night in our apartment. I washed the stuff furiously beforehand and it still tasted like dirt. But I guess the lesson, "spinach tastes like dirt in Argentina," hadn't fully registered in my brain, so here we were with a dirt-flavored pizza topped with disgusting bechamel sauce. Blech. I couldn't even finish a slice.

On to happier topics. Here are some pictures from our afternoon in La Boca. Side note: I've spoken with my parents on the phone since our last post and got some clarification about our family history. Most of our Italian relatives in the States are on my grandmother's side of the family and are from Varazze, which is a small coastal town near Genoa. But it turns out that my grandfather's mother was actually born in Buenos Aires! Her family was from Italy, and they must have moved to Buenos Aires with many of the other xeneize immigrants. But at some point they moved back, or at least my grandfather's mother did, because he was born in Italy.

This is the Caminito, the most famous part of La Boca, and usually the only part visited by tourists. The wild colors and corrugated metal date back to when the area's poorer residents would salvage shipping containers and paint from the docks to build their homes.

These days the caminito is extremely touristy and the colors are exaggerated for show, but it's still a neat place.

Back to San Telmo and the rest of Buenos Aires. Liz has a few more pictures of the neighborhood and the ecological reserve that she wanted to share.

Super modern pedestrian bridge, the "Puente de la Mujer."

Viva Robusto: The greatest collection of pictures of wheat and flowers on the internet since 2007!

This kind of stuff pretty much never fails to amuse me.

My parents don't need any additional convincing to come visit Buenos Aires, but just in case, here are some of the scary dolls available at the flea market in San Telmo. Enjoy, mom!

Our friend Kara. She spent 4 or 5 days with us in BsAs, then we all headed to Puerto Madryn together. She should be arriving back in Portland any hour now after about 40 hours of travel.

Praying Mantis at Pride Cafe. Do we have these in Portland? I haven't seen any, if we have.

Another shot at Pride Cafe. In addition to praying mantii, they have great coffee, friendly staff and awesome panini and pasta for around $5.

Bonus feature at Pride Cafe: There's a crazy lady that patrols the intersection just outside. She yells at cars, directs pedestrians and basically acts like it's her job. We're pretty sure she's just insane.

Botanical gardens in Palermo Viejo. There are a lot of these Lupa statues in Buenos Aires, but this is the first one I've seen that actually has a little Romulus and Remus suckling at the teats.

You can't hardly turn the corner without running into some sort of classical sculpture.

More shots from the botanical gardens.

Liz keeps giving me a hard time about all the pictures of steak I'm posting, but I just can't help myself. Okay, this will be the last one. Probably. This is the bife de chorizo at Des Nivel. Dang, I miss it already.

Probably the best ice cream in the world. Super dulce de leche at Dylan in San Telmo. Think regular dulce de leche with extra thick swirls of caramel and chunks of chocolate. I'm not even that into ice cream and this stuff blew my mind.

Steps at Parque Lezama, San Telmo.

Night out near the Microcenter. This was a "fancy" bar inside an old mansion. You could still get a bottle of wine for under $10 US.

And now I present the Official Tango Containment portion of Viva Robusto. In other words, here are all the rest of our pictures of Tango dancing.

Another night in Plaza Dorrego.

Liz and Kara saw this character strolling around the neighborhood one afternoon.

Apparently he had some serious crimefighting to attend to, hence the readied crouch.

In case the Portland jazz scene dries up, Dave could find work down here.

Near the Recoleta Cemetary. Too weird not to post.

One morning we woke up to find a new kitten in our courtyard. It was a gift from Josefina's daughter... she found it wandering in the park.

There are so many dogs in Buenos Aires. We tried to photograph as many as possible, in case you hadn't noticed already.

A few more shots from the courtyard, looking into our apartment on our last day in Buenos Aires.

So long (for now), San Telmo.

After Buenos Aires, our first stop was Puerto Madryn to check out Peninsula Valdes, home to all kinds of wildlife, including sea lions, sea elephants, orcas, armadillos, llamas and, of course, pinquinos.

Checking out the waterfront.

Come on ladies, can't we all just get along?

That's better.

Standard?

Apparently so.

The first full day after we arrived, we set out on a 34 kilometer bike ride. Here's a panoramic shot of the ride that won't fit in our blog.

Click for photo

And here are some more regular sized shots. It was a beautiful ride right along the sea with some spectacular views... but really difficult thanks to the piles of gravel and sand everywhere.

The next day we rented a car and drove to the peninsula. Quick stop for Tango in the observation tower.

Then we hit Puerto Piramides for low tide.

The boat was filled with sardines!

I'm pretty sure this is one of the locations on "Lost."

Our first look at some sea lions. I was expecting to see maybe one or two, but there were hundreds... laying out in the sun, swimming, playing... and making really loud burping sounds.

The other side of the sea lion habitat near Puerto Piramides.

Next stop, pinguinos. I was skeptical we'd actually see any penguins, despite this sign.

Nevertheless, there they were, thousands of them. Right at the edge of the desert, lined up along the water. So weird.

lol

A shot through the binoculars at Punta Norte. This is a different set of sea lions, in other words.

And here are some sea elephants.

These little guys were equal parts cute and creepy. They had no fear... they'd come right up to your feet.

Wild horses (we presume).

So far we'd seen llamas, foxes, sheep, armadillos, sea lions, sea elephants, penguins and lizards. But the real prize is seeing killer whales at Punta Norte. During high tide they hunt the sea lion cubs and occasionally come halfway up on the beach in pursuit. We weren't there for high tide, but we were extremely lucky to see a couple dozen orcas swimming and jumping in the distance. They were waiting for the water to get deep enough to start hunting.

Unfortunately our camera is really limited. It was pretty spectacular in real life, but the 3x zoom just wasn't cutting it for this kind of photography. We were lucky to even get these shots.

What would a Viva Robusto update be without a disgusting picture of a spider? This one had just caught the bee... it was still buzzing.

On the (extremely long) drive back to Puerto Madryn, we had one of the most amazing panoramic sunsets ever. The photos really don't do it justice.

We'll leave you with this moment of absurdity we witnessed in Puerto Madryn. Hopefully we won't get so behind before the next update... we'll be checking out the glaciers in the next few days so we should get some spectacular photos. Until then....

The Xeneize Connection

2008-03-27T09:47:00.000-07:00

When you think of Italian immigrants, you typically think New York, Chicago, San Francisco, right? Well, as many of you know, my dad's side of the family is from Italy. More specifically, my dad was born in Genoa in 1952. A few years later, his family moved to the Pacific Northwest, where many cousins, uncles, etc... had already settled.

I don't know how many of those people were from Genoa precisely; I know my grandparents are from the smaller coastal towns like Varazze and Celle Ligure. But it's safe to say there's a decent-sized Ligurian population, consisting of at least my extended family, living in the Portland/Vancouver area.

Turns out the Genovese emigrated in sizeable numbers to other places too. And not just New York, Chicago and San Francisco. Back around the turn of the century, a good number of Genovese settled in the La Boca neighborhood in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It makes sense: Genoa is a port city, perhaps one of the most important port cities in the history of the world. Buenos Aires is a port city, perhaps the most important port city in South America. Residents here are nicknamed porteños, literally "people who live at the port."

So it must have been natural for the Genovese shipbuilders, fishermen, sailors, etc... to settle in a similar location.

Here's the funny thing: We didn't know anything about this history when we were planning the trip. I wanted to come to Buenos Aires for the cheap steak and wine; Liz was more excited about Tango dancing and practicing her Spanish. Pretty much completely by accident, we chose a city and even a neighborhood (San Telmo borders La Boca) that has an interesting historical connection.

And the Xeneizes (genovese dialect for "genovese," or so I'm told) have remained insulated in their culture more than you'd think after over a hundred years. At one point the collective population drafted a letter to the king of Italy proclaiming that they had founded an "independent republic of La Boca," and that they were no longer citizens of Italy. To this day, fans of the Boca Juniors soccer team refer to themselves as the "xeneizes."

There's also a culinary connection. Other than the wine and pizza, that is. In northern Italy we tried a dish called "farinata," which is basically a pizza made with chickpea flour and served without sauce. We had it topped with arugula and brie, and it was amazing.

Here they have something similar, called "faina," only they serve it sort of as a complement to regular pizza. And they don't top it with anything. We'll come back to this in the next update. First, a trip report from our first visit to La Boca, to see a Boca Juniors game.

Quick background on the Boca Juniors: At the previous game, one person was stabbed, several cars and trucks were overturned and lit on fire, and over 170 spectators were arrested. This wasn't the championship or anything; it was like the third game into the season.

So the fans have a little bit of a reputation for hooliganism. And the La Boca neighborhood is still incredibly poor and known for crime. All the guide books warn against going off the beaten path, especially at night.

Still, they recommend going to a Boca Juniors game as part of a tour group. Most hotels and hostels offer a package that includes a ride to the game and a chaperone in the "less crazy" section of the stadium. But it costs a ton... something like $80 bucks a person!

We figured we could show up at the stadium and purchase our own tickets in the "less crazy" section for a lot less. Like, 20 bucks or so. But when we arrived, the only seats available were 170 pesos each (over $50 US). If we wanted to sit in the "ultra crazy" section, we could get tickets for 24 pesos each. Ship the crazy section seats, I guess.

Luckily we met another American couple that were in the same predicament. They had planned on getting less crazy seats but were priced out. We made a pact to stick together and purchased 4 crazy tickets.

Going into the stadium is both reassuring and terrifying. You have to pass at least 4 security checkpoints at which you are frisked. You have to surrender any liquids, like you're at the airport. And finally, you have to march up a long concrete walkway already thrumming with the noise of unseen Boca supporters singing and stomping in anticipation of the match.

In reality, the game turned out to be fairly calm. My theory is that because there was a major riot the previous week, security had been beefed up and the fans knew they had to be on better behavior. Also, it was Easter, and they take Catholic holidays pretty seriously here. Finally, the Boca Juniors were playing a very poor opponent. They won the game 2-1, but it was never really close. The opponents scored a garbage goal in the last few moments when nobody cared.

So, we had a great time and felt safe throughout the match. Liz went to a soccer game in Ecuador where people were throwing bottles, lighting things on fire and at one point, the crowd was tear-gassed. So this was a walk in the park for her.

The only weird thing is right at the end of the game the Boca fans are literally blocked from leaving their section by a phalanx of riot police. This is riot-prevention 101: Give the opposing team's fans time to get away before letting the Xeniezes loose. So it was a little odd to be trapped with thousands of sweaty Boca supporters, all staring down the Police as we waited to be allowed our freedom.

In other news, our friend Kara just arrived today, so we'll spend the next couple days showing her around town and enjoying the awesome food and wine the city has to offer. We have tons more pictures, of La Boca, San Telmo and beyond, but they'll have to wait for the next update.

Home away from home

2008-03-22T10:32:00.000-07:00

We've been in our apartment here in Buenos Aires for a little over two weeks now, and it's been a much-needed break from the rigors of traveling. For example, we don't have to live out of our backpacks, we don't have to move every other day and we have satisfied our cravings for the kind of foods we cook back home.

Actually, it's almost too cozy. It's like we are at home, except we can't hang out with our friends and family or our dog.

In a way, I think this one-month break from constant traveling is making me more homesick than traveling itself, but at the same time, it's allowing me to get excited about the idea of traveling again. When we take off again in 10 days or so, it will be novel to sleep in different beds every night, eat all of our meals out in restaurants and interact with other travelers.

Some travelers that you meet say things like, "Oh, man, the more you travel, the longer you want to keep going." Not me. I like traveling, but ultimately I want to go home. We're having phenomenal experiences everywhere we go, but home is home for a reason: All things considered, it's the best place in the world. Otherwise, you'd live somewhere else, right? I think real perpetual travelers must not have a lot to come home to.

Our friend Kara is coming down to visit us on Wednesday. We'll show her around Buenos Aires for a few days, then we'll all head down to Peninsula Valdes together, commencing our Patagonia adventures.

In the meantime we're loving the city life, recharging our batteries and eating and drinking extremely well.

Dipping sauces at Viejo Gomez. The restaurants here have a great understanding of how a meal should be paced. You almost always get a basket of bread with some kind of pate or spread as an appetizer. Then you get any actual appetizers that you have ordered. Then the main course and dessert, obviously, followed by coffee or the equivalent of a digestivo. In Asia, on the other hand, the order in which your food arrives is random. Fancier places understand that dessert comes after the meal, but they haven't quite got the hang of appetizers. In any case, here you often get two or three different sauces for your bread and/or steak. At Viejo Gomez we got the bread, two sauces, a spread and a hot, delicious empanada before we even ordered!

And the main course. This is bife de lomo, a leaner, tenderer cut than chorizo or vacio.

These aren't the best photos, but they can give you a sense of the San Telmo neighborhood. Liz promises better quality photos in the next update.

Pretty European, eh?

Another look at the neighborhood. A lot of people have compared the area's crumbling grandeur to Havana Viejo in Cuba.

Plaza de Mayo. This is in the microcentro, the heart of the city. About a 15 minute walk from our apartment. Not pictured is the Casa Rosada, where Evita used to give her speeches and/or sing for the people of Buenos Aires.

Oh wait, there's the Casa Rosada. It's the "pink house" in the background.

Now this is a really boring picture. But just look at that sidewalk! As I understand it, previous Argentine governments were corrupt and would undertake massive public works projects in order to give fat contracts to their friends and also maybe to skim a little off the top for themselves. It may have been unsustainable economically, but hey, now Buenos Aires has really wide sidewalks and streets in a lot of areas, including the widest street in the world, Avenida 9 de Julio, about two blocks from our apartment.

In my ongoing quest to find a pickup basketball game, Liz and I headed to Palermo Viejo one afternoon in search of the Club de Amigos, a massive gym/park complex. And we stumbled across several street parillas (grills) like this one. A single Choripan (sausage and roll) costs 3.5 pesos. About $1.10 US.

Palermo Viejo has lots of green space, including a zoo. Apparently it all used to be part of some politician's estate. When he was deposed/executed/whatever, the city turned it into park land. Again, city planning at its finest! Hope you're taking notes, Seth.

One of the locals enjoying Yerba Mate. It's basically green tea that you typically brew in a hollowed out gourd and then drink through a filtered straw. You often see people walking around the street sipping on their gourds with a thermos of warm water handy for refills.

We picked up the gear, but we haven't fully acquired the taste yet.

Steak dinner at Des Nivel, a boisterous, colorful restaurant in the heart of San Telmo.

Here's what they had on tap.

Enjoying the cafe lifestyle. Wake up at 11am, head to the cafe for lunch at 2:30 or 3pm, nap, dinner at 11pm. It's a hard-knock life.

Yesterday was Good Friday and the city was pretty quiet. We were going to head over to La Boca, but decided that with the streets being fairly deserted it wasn't the safest day for it. So instead we walked down to the nature reserve that borders San Telmo. We'd both been down here before--Liz runs one of the trails practically every morning--but we'd never seen it so packed. We think that a lot of the families that can't afford to head out of town for the holiday weekend come down here instead.

The place was covered in pro-choice graffiti.

A dreaded street performance. At least there was little danger of involuntary crowd participation on my part... this guy was already trapped.

It's great to have a nature reserve so close. The trail we hiked reminds me of Leif Erickson, but not nearly as heavily forested.

As you can see, it's right next to the city.

When we finished hiking, we saw this storm roll in.

Hardly anybody seemed to be paying attention, but I knew it was going to be fierce.

I finally convinced Liz to stop taking pictures so we could get the hell out of there, but she managed one or two more as we fought through the winds to get back home.

That's all for now, but you can expect another solid update before we leave Buenos Aires. Liz, having practically become the official photographer for Viva Robusto at this point, has promised higher quality photos in particular.

If you're new to the blog, I finally got around to fixing the html so the navigation isn't squished all the way down at the bottom of the page. If you look to the right, you can now easily browse by date or label. And I will fix the RSS link asap, so you can get automagic notification every time we update.

Until then, ciao!

15 time zones later, the view from Buenos Aires

2008-03-11T12:20:00.000-07:00

Now that we're fairly settled in here in Buenos Aires, it's time for some photos.

Sunrise on one of our four flights. Let's see... I think this was the flight from LA to San Jose, Costa Rica. The whole thing feels like kind of a blur now. Did I mention it took us 49 hours to get here?

Still, nothing a hot shower, cafe con leche and some clean laundry can't fix.

Our second meal out, we familiarized ourselves with the local brew, Quilmes. Quilmes Cristal, to be precise. That's right, we're finally sipping Cristal.

Liz and I felt differently about this pizza, but we agreed on one thing: It's a lot closer to the pizza back home than the pizza in Asia. For the record, I didn't like it as much as her.

This was pretty good, though. Ravioli con pesto. The pesto wasn't as good as real Genovese pesto, but, again, compared to some of the pasta we saw in Asia, it was a treat.

Dulce de Leche. Not just a flavor of ice cream in Argentina. It's a caramel-flavored, Nutella-esque spread that the locals use on just about everything. These are just a couple little pastries slathered in the stuff that we picked up from a local bakery. They weren't as good as they looked.

This is an oversized novelty steak. Seriously, what the hell! I didn't know meat came this big. I orderd the vacio (flank steak). What I got was like the entire flank of a two-ton Angus. Even more impressive, this cut is boneless. I almost ate half.

Game face: On

Only tape. I'm guessing their business has been tapering off for a while. At least I was able to show some support for their dying business model with my T-shirt.

Poo brand cleaning supplies! I'm so glad we have a whole new country filled with Engrish to keep us amused.

This dog was hilarious. We were walking down the street in Palermo Viejo when we saw her resting her head on a stuffed animal outside a candle shop. It was cute, so Liz ran to get a shot. But before she could snap the photo, the dog was up and its owner was showing off her tricks. Like, play dead with a stuffed rabbit in her mouth.

Liz spoke to the guy for a few minutes in Spanish. Apparently foreigners always want to take pictures of his dog. The guy was so genuine and friendly... just like everyone else we've met in this country so far... from strangers on the bus helping with directions to our new landlord and his leasing agent.

This is where I'm currently writing the blog. And where I should be writing my novel. I'll get on it.

Ok, this photo sucks. But I had to post it, because it's the best meal I've had so far in Argentina. Bife de Chorizo con pure de papas y espinaca at a place called Los Loros in the San Telmo neighborhood. 30 pesos, aka $9.52 US. That's less than the BK value meal at LAX!

I could blow through a lot of adjectives trying to describe how good it was, but I'll just stick with one that should cover the entire meal: sublime.

Sunday in San Telmo. The neighborhood transforms itself... from sleepy and slightly worn around the edges to the most bustling barrio in BsAs. The cops block off Defensa street so tourists, street performers, tango dancers, vendors and, well, more cops can flood the cobblestoned corridor for more than a mile.

At the center of it all is Plaza Dorrego, legendary home of sexy outdoor Tango exhibitions. All right, someone needs to update the guide book.

Lomito... aka steak sandwich. 11 pesos ($3.49). Basically, two pieces of toast and a hunk of steak. No condiments in sight. My kind of meal.

Street performers aren't usually my bag, but some of the ensembles were actually pretty dang good. Liz almost bought their CD.

One downside to living in San Telmo is that most of the grocery stores within walking distance suck. It's especially lame as we are hoping to cook a decent percentage of our meals at home. But while these stores may not have, say, saffron, yeast, real olive oil, Saran Wrap or any of the other fancy-pants items we find ourselves wanting, one thing they have in spades is cheap booze.

When the most expensive liter of vodka available is $3.61 US (divide pesos by 3.15 to get the US price), you know you're bargain shopping.

One of our first homemade dinners: Butternut squash risotto with pancetta. It doesn't look great and, again, the photo is lacking, but this actually turned out really well.

Dog-walkers are a common sight here in Buenos Aires. As are the dogs' leavings; the dog walkers aren't required to pick up after their clients.

Things can get a little hairy when you're trying to walk eleven 50-pound dogs at once.

Cementerio de la Recoleta, filled with the decaying corpses of some of Buenos Aires' most prominent former citizens.

I had low expectations... it's a popular tourist site, and looking at a bunch of gravestones didn't sound all that appealing to me. But the place is actually really impressive.

Most of the tombs are huge, some have an upstairs, and almost all of them have catacombs. Many are bigger than hotel rooms I've stayed in.

With a prime location in the middle of Recoleta, the cemetary is reserved for the truly elite (aka rich). But the economic crisis of 2001 affected even some of the old-money families, who could no longer afford to maintain their family plots here.

So among the towering marble and granite tombs, you'll see a few that have fallen into total disrepair, with shattered glass, litter... even this!

Catacombs beneath one poorly maintained tomb.

The rest of the place is magnificent.

And here's Evita's final resting spot.

On a mission to find and purchase a pair of basketball shorts, Liz and I happened into a fancy movie theater complex in the Recoleta neighborhood, complete with arcade. I convinced her to play some air hockey and whack-a-mole.

El Ateneo, a bookstore rivaling Powell's in cool factor if not in selection.

Liz tries a "submarino," basically a cup of hot milk with a chocolate bar in it.

A view of our apartment from the patio.

One of the things I've been missing passionately: Homemade french bread with artisan salami. Yep, it's good to be in a place with a kitchen.

That wraps it up for now. This week we may begin volunteering at a program called L.I.F.E. in Recoleta, and I will definitely conclude my search for a venue in which to play basketball to offset the immense amount of steak, wine and salami I am consuming. Ciao!

Porteños

2008-03-07T03:29:00.000-08:00

We made it. What else is there to say after 4 flights and 49 consecutive hours of travel time?

Ok, there's a little bit more to say.

We left our hostel in Bangkok at 3:30pm BKK time. Our flight was at 7:30; we arrived at the airport in plenty of time to eat Burger King (my first burger in 5 months).

The flight to LA was pretty uneventful. We both slept a little bit, but not for more than maybe 2 hours at a time (it was a 14 hour flight).

The plan was to have a nice dinner at LAX since we had about 6 hours to kill before our next flight. But the airport was such a disorganized mess that it took us a full 3 hours just to get to our gate, at which point we realized that there were no good restaurants nearby. And we didn't have time to go through the horribly inefficient security checkpoint again.

The only options were a Wolfgang Puck with $14.95 pasta dishes and some kind of Southwestern barbecue place that was about to close and didn't seem all that great anyway. Oh, and Burger King. Yep, we had BK for the 2nd time in 24 hours. Interesting note: They had a "value meal" that cost over $10. Holy crap! I know we're coming from Asia where everything is super cheap, but that's just ridiculous!

Our first stop was in San Jose, Costa Rica. Lovely airport. I had BK again! But wait, I didn't have a burger. They had some kind of local bean and rice dish with tortillas for $3, so I called it breakfast.

Next stop, Lima, Peru. Also a nice airport, but by this point we were pretty exhausted and we had a long wait ahead of us. Luckily, the airport had seats without armrests, so we could actually curl up and sleep on them.

I had no idea I could fall into such a deep sleep in the middle of a noisy airport. Again we both slept for an hour or two in snatches, then finally boarded our flight (which was about half an hour late).

We arrived in Buenos Aires at around 5:30am. Customs was a breeze and the baggage claim was only a slight delay. We grabbed a taxi ($28, ouch) to our hostel and, after breakfast, sat around using the internet until our room became available at noon.

Surprisingly, we made it through that first day with only a short nap, and actually got a decent night of sleep.

We haven't done much so far other than explore our neighborhood (San Telmo) a bit, and look for apartments. Apparently most apartment-finding services online don't allow you to view the place in person before booking. But we eventually found a place that we were able to see, and we moved in yesterday at 2:30pm.

This afternoon we'll explore some other neighborhoods a bit, and we should have another update with photos ready in a few days or so.

Until then....

Adios, Asia

2008-02-29T21:09:00.000-08:00

Well, the time has finally come. Tonight's our last night in Southeast Asia. We're in Bangkok, staying at the Suk 11 guesthouse once again (if you're ever in town, it's WAAAAY better to stay here than anywhere near Khao San).

It's kind of an obvious thing to say, but our time here has been full of ups and downs. I absolutely love a lot of things about Asia and I'm extremely glad I didn't talk Liz out of this portion of our trip. Other things about Asia make me so angry I almost can't believe it.

This got me to thinking. What if you could take all the unique, awesome elements from each Southeast Asian country and combine them to make one spectacular uber-country? I think I'd call it Viet Lao Siambodia, and it would have the following characteristics:

- Thailand's beaches
- Vietnam's 16-cent Bia Hoi
- Lao's kicked-back attitude
- Angkor Wat (minus the hordes of tourists)
- Thai curry, som tam, pad thai, pad see iew, khao niaw, Khao Soi, morning glory, Tom Ka, Tom Yum, Sai Oua, etc...
- Vietnamese Pho, Nuong Bo, Vermicelli, fresh spring rolls, strong coffee with sweet and condensed milk, etc...
- Vietnam's healthy selection of pirated CDs and DVDs for around $1.
- Bangkok's T-shirt selection.
- Lao's bread.
- NO NESCAFE!

And the people would drive like calm, efficient Germans.

Ok, that's too unrealistic even for a fantasy. The fact is that Asian culture is just so different that it's always going to be a little frustrating for Westerners to travel here. My main complaints:

- Driving. As mentioned in this blog before, the way people drive here is legitimately insane. The best drivers are actually in Thailand, where traffic signals are routinely obeyed and the roads are, for the most part, pretty decent. Even here, getting from point A to point B can feel like Death Race 2000.

The worst drivers, by far, are in Vietnam. I am honestly surprised that the bus driver who took us from Mui Ne to Saigon didn't kill someone during the ride.

- Scams. Almost everyone here wants your money; some will provide an honest service or product, others will just try to trick you. We encountered the least amount of scams in northern Thailand and Laos. Vietnam, Cambodia and the really touristy beaches in Thailand are the best places to get scammed. In Hanoi, you'll find multiple hotels, restaurants and travel agencies with the exact same name. The copycats are trading on the original's reputation, and rarely offer equal product.

When we first arrived there, we had a reservation at Stars Hotel. We were taken to "Star Hotel," and told that it was full, would we check out another hotel nearby? We pointed out that the address for "Star Hotel" was wrong and asked to go to the real hotel. They took us to their friend's hotel anyway, where a tout spent 10 minutes trying to talk me into a room for more money than the one I had already reserved.

When it finally became clear that we weren't getting out of the taxi until we were taken to the real Stars hotel, the tout slammed the door in my face and our driver suddenly revealed that he could speak English. Real nice.

Another scam that's less menacing but extremely annoying is the "forced rest stop." The cheapest and easiest way to get around SE Asia is by bus. If you take a tourist bus (which is pretty much your only choice in most places), you can count on a rest stop, no matter how long the ride.

The rest stops are usually welcome if you're in the middle of a 12-hour ride. But often you'll stop 20 minutes before your final destination at some diner in the middle of nowhere (so you're forced to eat there if you want to eat anywhere) for 45 minutes!

Another example. The other day we needed to get from Ko Pha Ngan to Bangkok. This involves a boat ride, a bus trip and a train ride. The bus trip from the pier to the train station in Surat Thani is about 40 minutes. But we drove an hour or so to a completely out-of-the-way diner and were forced to stop for 40 minutes before heading BACK the direction we came to the train station. Ugh.

This wouldn't bug me so much if the rest stops actually served decent food. They pay (bribe) the bus drivers to stop at their particular location, and, perhaps because they have a captive set of diners, tend to serve the shittiest food ever. At one recent stop, I ordered the safest bet on the limited, western-oriented menu: Pad Thai. It arrived about 20 seconds later, cold and limp as a dead fish. It had obviously been prepared earlier in the day and mildly reheated. I took one bite and decided that was enough. When the waitress returned to clear our plates, her eyes went wide at my untouched meal.

"Cold," I said. "No good."

She apologized in the faintest voice ever and disappeared. Of course I still had to pay for the meal. Complaining would do no good.

- Miscommunication/dishonesty. This is related to the scam category above, but different enough to merit its own discussion. It's frustrating to not speak the language, and therefore not be able to communicate exactly what you want from a restaurant or hotel. Sometimes they're gonna screw it up, and there's nothing you can do about it. This is mostly harmless, just a standard pitfall of traveling. But some of the locals use the language barrier to their advantage, like our friend the Hanoi taxi driver.

When we returned to Thailand and started island-hopping, we began to notice errors on our dinner bills. The service is different here, you could chalk it up to the pure laziness and forgetfulness of the staff, except for the fact that it was happening more often than not (like, seriously, 85% of the time), and the error was always for more money rather than less.

The thing is, everything is so cheap that lots of people sit down at a restaurant, order tons of shit, and pay whatever the place writes on the bill. If it's 140 baht versus 220 baht, who really cares? That's the difference between $4.50 and $7, really not the end of the world by US standards, but when you are traveling for a year and trying to make your budget stretch, it all adds up.

And the beauty of this scam is that they can always play it off as a benign error. I'd just get a mild, "oh, sorry" every time it happened.

- Inside-the-box thinking. I have a friend who has lived in Bangkok for 8 years now, and he is actually the person who helped me quantify this complaint. Example. You go to a restaurant and order two pancakes for yourself. They bring you two plates with one pancake on each plate, and two sets of silverware. This has happened to me not once, not twice, not thrice, but EVERY SINGLE TIME I HAVE ORDERED PANCAKES! I have tried explaining at the outset that both pancakes are for me, and that I can make do perfectly well with one plate and one set of silverware. Yet two plates always come. My friend explained that Thais in the service industry get so focused on completing their jobs in a precise way that it is very difficult for them to deviate from procedure at all.

My friend speaks perfect Thai, and when we were hanging out on Ko Pha Ngan, he tried to order fried rice with green curry paste each morning at a different place. Each morning, he had the same conversation.

Friend: "Can I have fried rice with green curry paste?"
Staff: "No, sorry, we can't do that."
Friend: "But on your menu, you have 'fried rice with curry'"
Staff: "Yes, that's made with a different kind of curry paste."
Friend: "But you have green curry paste, yes?"
Staff: "Yes, we have green curry paste."
Friend: "Can you make the fried rice using the green curry paste?"
Staff (unsure): "I don't know. I don't think it will be very good."

Keep in mind that my friend was speaking Thai; there is no language barrier here. And he's an expert on Thai food; the dish he was ordering is something the locals eat for breakfast commonly.

In other words, they really just want you to order what's on the menu and not make any special requests. Customizing your order throws their world into a tizzy.

This phenomenon also occurs anytime you buy anything, anywhere. The people here are obsessed with plastic bags. Buy a single bottle of water and they want to double-wrap it in clear plastic bags for you and toss in about 5 straws. It doesn't occur to them to think it might be unnecessary. They just know that they've been told to wrap all purchases in bags. They don't have the leeway to determine that you can manage to carry your single plastic lighter in your hands.

This isn't annoying so much as it is disheartening; the roads everywhere are littered with all this discarded excess packaging. Particularly in Cambodia. The garbage there will blow your [censored] mind.

- Weird service. Yeah, I'm blathering on and on about the service in countries where I don't speak the language, but, in my defense, I've been eating out 3 meals a day for the past 150 days. Little annoyances become big ones when they happen all the freaking time.

Here's a really weird thing about service in Asia. Let's say you're walking along the street, thinking about some dinner. There are a dozen restaurants in front of you, each with a menu for your perusal conveniently placed out near the curb on a stand.

If you approach the menu, an employee from the restaurant will appear and hover over you until you either decide to enter the restaurant or leave. In Vietnam, they will often try to sell you on the place verbally. Other places, they just stand there and stare at you.

Once you sit down, one of two things will happen.

1. A waiter will IMMEDIATELY appear and expect you to be ready to order. Anyone who knows Liz will know that this ain't happening. If you tell them to go away, they will return in approximately 12 seconds.

2. You will wait about 20 minutes, at which point you will give up and track someone down on your own. You'll order 5 things. After 10 minutes, you'll receive the first thing, perhaps steamed rice. After another 5 minutes, you'll get the second thing, perhaps a curry. Another 5 minutes later, the other person's food may arrive. Or it may not. If you wait for all the food to arrive before you begin eating, the first dishes may become cold and inedible.

Don't let all this complaining fool you. Most people we've encountered in Asia have been exceedingly friendly and polite. Thailand is known as the 'Land of Smiles,' and, for the most part, it lives up to the reputation.

If you haven't already been to this part of the world, you need to come. I'd recommend different places and countries to different travelers (for example, I'd have my parents fly to Angkor Wat and then immediately leave Cambodia for Thailand and Laos), but for the most part, it's an extremely easy and rewarding place to travel.

And now I'd like to address my brother and my wife's brother specifically:

Joel, Dave,

You guys *really* need to visit SE Asia. Save up a few bucks and get the hell over here as soon as possible.

Trust me,

Dan

Note: I'm not suggesting they visit Asia to drink 16 cent beers, laze about on spectacular white sand beaches and hook up with smoking hot asian babes and fellow travelers. But I'm not *not* suggesting it either.

And now the part of the post you've all been waiting for, photos!

Watering the street. I couldn't figure out for the life of me why people would do this. It's really common down on the Thai islands to find a guy inexplicably watering the gravel and dirt road in front of his shop. There are signs everywhere advising tourists to conserve fresh water on the islands, so why were these guys dumping gallons recklessly in the street?

My friend Austin actually came up with a reasonable explanation: It cuts down on the dust. So there you go.

Ko Pha Ngan. Although it's best known for the full moon parties, it's actually a pretty good-sized islands with plenty of mellow, beautiful beaches.

Austin and Brynn outside our bungalow at breakfast.

We let Austin do most of the ordering when he's around. The food that arrives is a lot better and spicier than it is when we order ourselves.

I finally got a chance to get some exercise playing a little football with the locals. And, apologies to Pat at CB&S, the game appears to be total luck. I haven't played organized soccer in 18 years, yet I scored two goals - one with each foot - and had another disallowed for being a tick too high.

Just kidding, I did score twice, but was clearly outclassed by everyone else on the field. Even this guy.

Our second night hanging out on Ko Pha Ngan, things got a little out of control.

We started with the local brew, Chang.

Plenty intoxicating on its own, as you can see.

And then we moved on to the ultimate drinking invention: A bucket of alcohol.

Ah, that Sang Som Thai Rum goes down so smooth!

I included this image as foreshadowing: Brooke in front of two empty buckets. She did not feel very well the next day. After our third shared bucket, we apparently contemplated ordering a fourth, and then the next thing we knew, we were all running into the ocean. The last thing I remember is sitting on the beach in my underwear, talking to a British Indian guy about how he should visit the States because the girls would really dig his accent.

After a few days recovery, we were ready to check out the full moon party on the other side of the island. But first, group photo.

This isn't the one Austin took. This is from our little elph camera.

Buckets are the beverage of choice down at Haad Rin (the site of the full moon party).

The donuts were tempting, but I can't imagine eating that "pizza" no matter how desperate I became.

A selection of glow-in-the-dark body paints readily available.

Didn't we learn our lesson?

A big part of the full moon party is attempting to light yourself on fire, be it through fire juggling, fire limbo, fire jump rope, or just plain running through fire.

Atsa spicy meatball!

Also a big part of the full moon party:

Just a few more to capture the scene.

This one very closely approximates what you see through your own eyes. Note the zonked out dude clinging for life to the pole.

And the grand finale to the evening: Greasy schnitzel sandwiches and a rainy cab ride home.

Life after the party: One of the cute puppies back at our bungalow.

Haad Yao turned out to be really impressive.

That's it for now, we actually have to catch our taxi to the airport. Catch up with you in Argentina!

Dan

The Beach

2008-02-23T00:51:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned in the last update, we’ve left the garbage-eating cows of Cambodia behind for the Thai islands. We spent several days in Bangkok taking care of last-minute shopping before heading to the first island, Ko Mak. And right now we’re on Ko Pha Ngan, our last stop before returning to Bangkok and flying out of Asia.

But we’ll get to all that soon enough. First we’ve got a backlog of photos to catch up on, so here you go.

This shiny fellow is the reclining Buddha at Wat Po in Bangkok. It’s hard to say which is bigger, this reclining Buddha, or the one we saw in Laos. Either way, they’re both enormous, although this one is slightly more impressive due to the gold leaf.

Another shot to hopefully add more perspective. I still don’t think the statue’s colossal size comes across very well in our photos.

Some more shots around Wat Po. Liz and I both thought the rooftops looked a lot like ultra-fancy 7-11s.

I don’t think I’ve written anything about the Thai King yet. I barely realized that Thailand was a kingdom before we arrived, but once you’re here it’s impossible to miss. The Thai people absolutely love the King and have erected monuments and images literally everywhere. Now, I don’t toss around the word literally lightly, as Jeff “Punk Rock” Martin and the other writers at CB&S can attest. To use the word incorrectly (“My tongue is literally on fire!”) is to risk a figurative lashing from my grammar-minded co-workers. So believe me when I say that you will find an image of the King or the King and Queen in every store, every restaurant, every office and on every street in Thailand. Literally.

Some creative recycling on one of the monuments.

This is like a product Homer Simpson would invent.

Robot dog on Khao San road. Of course, it’s just a real dog in a robot costume (as one might encounter anywhere), but the owner was actually controlling it with a remote-control.

This also reminds me of the Simpsons a bit.

Ko Mak! This was the first Thai Island we visited, and also the quietest.

There were a lot of beach dogs that looked to be pretty well taken care of. This one was named Yogurt.

No bars, restaurants, bungalows or ping pong shows in sight.

We each have our own method of getting coconuts.

Ko Mak had some of the most beautiful sunsets we’ve seen yet.

The worst haircut of my life. It’s actually grown out a bit here; I had it cut back near Khao San road in Bangkok and it looked worse before. Here’s the story: Liz and I both needed haircuts. We found a place where it looked like we could both get our haircuts at the same time. But no, Liz went first and got the hairdresser who spoke English pretty well. When she was done, I sat down, and got the hairdresser who only knew how to say, “Ou!!!! Sorry!!!” which was a commonly heard phrase throughout the haircut.

Basically she started right above my ear on one side and nearly shaved me bald before she realized what she was doing. So then she did the other side to match. My hair was so stupid looking at the end that I just borrowed the buzzer and took the whole thing down to a 3. But it still wasn’t short enough to cover up my near bald spots.

You’ve heard of a faux-hawk, right? I call this the faux-mullet.

Just because we haven’t posted any photos of food in a while. The truth is, we’ve had fairly mediocre food since we left Vietnam. In Cambodia you pretty much have to eat in the western restaurants; the local khmer ones often have dodgy ingredients. And because the Thai islands primarily cater to falang, it’s difficult to find anything with real flavor and spice. Anyway, this pad see iew was pretty decent by island standards.

This was the bathroom that housed the giant spider that tormented us for 3 days. It was OK until it decided to crawl out of the bathroom and make for our bed. I went to smash it with a shoe but missed (!) and we ended up getting a neighbor to chase it out through the roof.

Our front porch.

This is not the spider in question. We found this one in an extremely clean western-style diner in Trang, so it just goes to show you: You’re never safe. This thing was about 5 inches across.

Here we are on Ko Lanta. I used a bizarre setting on the camera to get the insane night background.

Lanta was also really beautiful and mellow. Some locals got together a soccer game nearly every night at sunset.

Unspoiled.

And they had free wifi!

Sunglasses #6. I went cop-style with these.

Ko Phi Phi. After Ko Lanta, we knew we were going to meet up with Austin and his friend Brynn on either Ko Samui or Ko Pha Ngan. But before that, we had a couple days to visit another island and we had to choose between Railay Beach (which is not actually an island) and Ko Phi Phi. They are both considered to be spectacular but spoiled, but we chose Phi Phi because I wanted to see the spot where they filmed “The Beach.” This isn’t it, by the way.

To be more European, we decided to include glamour shots of ourselves.

We stayed near Tonsai beach on Phi Phi, the most crowded and overdeveloped spot on the island. But across the short peninsula (the island has twin crescent beaches that are back to back) there was a fairly nice white-sand beach with the clearest water ever.

This is the ruined side.

Once we arrived, I figured out that they didn’t actually film “The Beach” on Ko Phi Phi Don, they filmed it on Ko Phi Phi Leh, which is 6 kilometers south. But you can’t actually stay on Phi Phi Leh, which helps protect the island from being ruined. We ended up taking a short day trip there that included snorkeling and kayaking. These are some of the limestone cliffs that ring the island.

Now this is where they actually filmed “The Beach.” And I have to say, I think it’s the best beach I’ve ever seen in the world. That includes Hawaii, California, the Dominican Republic, the azure coast in Italy, Cambodia, Vietnam and all the other Thai islands. It’s really a great beach.

The water is shallow, but not TOO shallow… clear but with a hint of beautiful turquoise… and the sand is out of this world. The softest white sand I’ve ever set foot on. Basically, it makes you want to do this.

Just because I will probably never be this tan again.

This guy really enjoyed the sand.

Oh yeah, did I mention that this perfect sand and water is ringed with amazing limestone cliffs?

Look at that freaking sand and water!

Liz hates this picture, but just look at the water. That’s really what it looked like.

That’s all for now. We’re on Ko Pha Ngan at the moment, recovering from a 3-bucket night. I’ll explain that in the next update.

Cambodia

2008-02-07T20:57:00.000-08:00

Sorry it’s been a while since we’ve updated with anything significant. We took 300+ pictures in Cambodia, including something like 220 at Angkor Wat, so it was a little daunting to go through all of them and put together something coherent.

But now we’re back in Thailand with nothing to do for the rest of the month except lay on beautiful white sand beaches, so here you go.

At the moment we’re actually on a small island called Ko Mak. It’s a nice setting, but there is a huge spider that lives in our bathroom so it’s not as relaxing as it could be.

In any case, here are the photos.

This was the first place we stayed in Cambodia: The Lazy Fish guest house in Phnom Penh. We had another guest house in mind, but, as is standard in Cambodia, our tuk-tuk driver refused to take us there until we checked out the guest house that pays him a commission first. So we went to the Lazy Fish. And the first thing you see is this awesome setting… the rooms are actually on a dock above the lake, and there is a killer common area with tons of hammocks, a pool table, TV/DVD player and a bar. We almost agreed to stay here without even seeing a room.

Then we checked out the rooms. Not terrible, but a bit rustic. We didn’t see any massive spiders though, so we figured it was ok. That night, I woke up to the sound of scratching and scurrying rodents along the walls. Liz got up around the same time and was about to head to the bathroom. “Be careful,” I warned her, “it sounds like there is at least one rat in the room.” She wasn’t happy that I told her that, but I figured better she find out from me than discover them on her own.

For some inexplicable reason, we actually decided to stay a second night there. Maybe it was the awesome setting; the day of reading books in hammocks beside the lake that made us forget about the rats chewing through our walls. But the second night was even worse than the first. The rats were making a racket when I woke up, and it sounded like they were crawling along the wall just above our bed. I couldn’t get back to sleep while they were squeaking and chewing, and so I laid there sweating for quite a while. When I woke up the next morning I had an awful pimply rash on both elbows that I think was caused from laying in a pool of my own sweat on greasy, disgusting sheets.

So, on the third night, we moved hotels. We spent the extra $2 (our new room cost $8 rather than $6) for air-con, satellite TV and, best of all, NO RODENTS.

Riverside, Phnom Penh. A lot of the city is dirty, crowded and insane, but the riverside is nice, and occasionally you see an elephant out for a stroll. We’ve heard that living in the city is terrible for elephants, but it’s hard not to stop and gawk at something so massive walking down a city street.

Another riverside shot. Very unlike the center of town, where the bus deposited us among a near-riot of tuk-tuk drivers vying for our business. There were actually one or two police on hand in anticipation of the arrival of the tourist bus. It was nice; they held the mob at bay with billy clubs and we were allowed to retrieve our bags in peace before being assaulted by offers.

This is why the beef in Cambodia tastes funny.

Sihanoukville. The beautiful beach town with the unfortunate name. We weren’t planning on visiting the beach in Cambodia, but since we’re only allowed 30 days in Thailand at a time, we found ourselves with some extra time to kill before re-entering the country. It turned out to be a great decision to head south and check it out.

Liz thought it was already a little overdeveloped, but in my opinion, Sihanoukville is one of the best beaches I’ve ever visited. Soft sand, no rocks, and perfect water that’s gently warm but still refreshing. Unbelievable sunsets, too.

I finally bought a watch. When we first arrived in Bangkok, I was tempted to pick one up, but they were too expensive ($50-80). This one was considerably cheaper.

We also took a boat trip from Sihanoukville to a couple of the surrounding islands. This was the first time I ever properly snorkeled, and it was actually pretty cool!

Bamboo Island. Even better beaches than Sihanoukville. Same sand and gentle, shallow water, but far fewer people.

Plus Liz’s favorite accessory, a hammock.

The other side of the island. As an Oregonian, it’s still weird to be able to run straight into the ocean and feel refreshed rather than frozen.

Not sure if I mentioned this in the other update, but my Prada glasses broke randomly while they were on my face. So I got this pair, which lasted approximately 5 days. I’m now on my 5th pair of sunglasses for the trip.

Typical roadside view in Cambodia. The amount of garbage along the roads is staggering.

Sunset in Siem Reap.

Angkor Wat. One of the 7 wonders of the world? I’m not sure. Liz seems to think so. Anyway, it’s pretty cool.

This is at Angkor Thom (part of what’s known as “Angkor Wat” as a whole, but a separate location), a ruin known as “Bayon.” There are over a hundred of these large, enigmatically smiling faces placed throughout the facility.

Some of the more “ruined” ruins have these colossal trees that have sprung up in the most unlikely places… on top of walls and buildings or nearly blocking the front entrance to the temple.

More detail.

$5 to the first person who can explain this shirt.

A couple little girls who were selling postcards and bracelets, and, failing that, just wanted to collect as many plastic bottles as possible.

In front of the most famous temple at Angkor Wat…. Angkor Wat. It was about 20 degrees hotter than the surface of the sun when this picture was taken, hence my expression.

Some of the bas-relief artwork inside Angkor Wat. Some historian once described the place as “the masterpiece of an unknown Michelangelo.”

The back of the temple. I just included this because the lighting came out so bizarre.

Hundreds of feet of detailed bas-relief carved into stone.

Taking a break in the shade.

We found some monkeys hanging out near one of the exits. Apparently they’re a fixture there… they’re even included on the Angkor map!

Another long shot of Angkor Wat.

This one’s for Kyle. Would you like the Special Muscle Wine, the Muscle X.O. Wine, or the Wrestler Wine? Or maybe you’ll just stick with the Bird’s Nest?

This is also the first restaurant I’ve ever seen that brags about its blacksmithing skills right on the menu.

That’s all for now. Will update again when internet is cheaper.

Super quick update

2008-02-05T06:50:00.000-08:00

Just wanted to let everyone know we're all right. We spent the past 4 nights in Bangkok resting up and running errands. Tomorrow we head to our first thai island of the trip... ko maak.

We'll have a big update with photos soon.

Cheers!

Dan

2 updates in less than 24 hours

2008-01-22T21:38:00.000-08:00

While we've found some computers that work reasonably well, we figured we should take advantage and get all caught up. So after posting 43 photos last night just before midnight, I'm now going to post another 49 about 12 hours later.

This is a fairly classic example of some of the artwork you find in restaurants here in Vietnam. The still life with fruit isn't all that weird, I guess, but why the booze cannon?

We ordered the "set menu" for 1 person at this place in Hoi An, and they just kept bringing us dish after dish. 3 or 4 more plates came that aren't pictured. Eventually we figured that they had misheard us and given us twice as much as we asked for, but no, they only charged us for one. The whole meal was about $8 and it included 3 glasses of beer and way more food than you see here.

This dog is wearing a pearl necklace.

Cyclo driver. These guys are mega-annoying in Hue, but not quite as bad in Hoi An.

Another shot of Pho Bo.

Our hotel in Hoi An was really nice, and only cost $12, but the toilet would randomly gurgle and belch up water throughout the night. The culprit:

This represents how I feel about being pestered every time I walk outside here.

One of Hoi An's 234532463463242 tailor shops. Liz had a dress made; I had a pair of shoes made. I gave them a picture of these rare Dunlop shoes that Liz found in an advertisement in an Italian magazine. I've been looking for them ever since, and now I have a reasonably decent pair of fakes.

The shoes in question (I haven't taken a photo of my copied pair yet).

The is the face I make when I'm about to take a 19-hour bus ride. We were going to go from Hoi An to Mui Ne and skip the popular beach destination Nha Trang, but the weather changed our plans.

It wasn't as comfortable as it looked. There was actually a sizeable metal partition that made it impossible to lie on one's side. We spent about 20 hours on this bus but only made it to Nha Trang... thanks to a 7 hour traffic jam in the middle of the night. So we spent one night in Nha Trang (where the weather was terrible) before moving on to Mui Ne.

On the way to Mui Ne, we finally escaped the rain.

And then some.

View of the sunset from our pool. This place was $18 per night.

Liz didn't want me to post this, but I think it's humorous how her eyes rolled back in her head in ecstasy as she enjoyed just her second taste of pizza in the past few months.

Later that night, we went out for drinks and to play our new favorite bar game, where you take turns "drafting" bands and score points by the number of songs that are played by your bands. This place had pretty good cocktails that were buy one get one free, which amounted to $2 each.

Some more views from our hotel.

Fresh seafood is really big in Mui Ne. If you head into the center of the "town," all the restaurants have the day's catch displayed on ice for you to peruse.

We selected the guy on the right. It cost 120,000 (about $7.25) for the whole fish, including fried rice and vegetables for two.

Here's how he turned out. This was one of the best meals we had in Vietnam.

The next day we hit the beach and rented boogie boards for an hour.

I was reminded of why I originally retired from the sport.

Our last day in Mui Ne, we rented a motorbike to go check out the sand dunes. I'm glad I got to add Vietnam to the list of countries in which I have driven a motorbike (currently USA, Dominican Republic, Italy, Thailand, Laos and Vietnam), but the trip ended on a disturbing note. About 5km from our hotel, we were just starting to reach the edge of the city. As we turned the corner, we noticed a crowd of people gathered on both sides of the street. I slowed to a crawl, thinking we might be interfering with a parade or some other official event. But as we got closer, the atmosphere didn't seem very parade-like. There was a somber-faced policeman; a woman carrying her children quickly away from the scene. And then we saw it: There were no bodies, broken limbs or crushed vehicles. Just a disturbingly large pool of blood and a few small bits of motorbike. Sort of took the fun out of the rest of the ride. The people here really do drive terribly. I suspect that the problem will get even more out of hand in Saigon as the population keeps growing... it's something the country will have to address someday.

The white dunes were particularly cool. There were lots of little kids with plastic sleds that you could rent for sliding.

We also passed this "canyon," which was kind of cool.

Appetizing.

Here's something annoying about Asia. Usually in the bathrooms, the shower just goes all over the floor. So if you wear your shoes in there, you end up getting mud all over the place. The hotels generally provide flip flops, but they're usually either filthy or, in this case, a touch on the small side for size 12 feet. I couldn't reach the end of these; the straps were so low that I couldn't get my toes under them.

More Bia Hoi (fresh beer), the 2-liter variety. 9,000 dong.

There are lots of vendors carrying around books in Saigon. This lady had one of the tallest stacks I've seen.

Do I really need to say anything more?

Yesterday we did a 7-hour self-guided walking tour of Saigon. One of the museums we visited was housed in a really cool old building. This bride and groom obviously also thought the location was nice.

It's no joke; you really aren't safe on the sidewalk here.

Another great meal. We lucked into this place in the middle of our walking tour. As good as it looks.

Massive tank at the War Remnants Museum. They have a very impressive, very disturbing collection of photos and artifacts.

For all the hustle, bustle and noise, Saigon has some natural beauty as well.

One of the few motorbikes that isn't a 110cc bucket of bolts. This was a cool vintage BMW near the Notre Dame cathedral.

The best knockoff in Asian history? It's not nearly as impressive as the original on the inside.

This does NOT do the situation justice. I have a video; I'll have to share it later.

That's all for now. We decided to head to Pnomh Penh in Cambodia tomorrow. It turns out we'll spend a few more days there than planned, as we can only remain in Thailand for 30 days prior to our departure on March 1. Catch up with you again soon!

An update?

2008-01-22T08:03:00.000-08:00

Forgive the tentative title; I'm just not sure if this update will work or not. See, I can't even view our own blog here in Vietnam. Most internet sites work just fine, but for some reason, our blog always comes up blank. I'm not sure if this is some sort of censorship (our friend Adam says he can't view anything with the word "blog" in it in China without resorting to elite haxor skills), or just a problem with our blog, but I'm pushing forward.

Right now I'm waiting for Picasa to load my photos, then I can begin the annoying process of reselecting the ones I want to publish and uploading them. In the meantime, I can confirm that Vietnam is the most frustrating country I've ever visited.

We've had a lot of fun; don't get me wrong. But there are many things in this country that just drive me up the wall.

Today I was almost run over... AGAIN... for example. Right now we're in Ho Chi Minh City, AKA Saigon. The traffic here is more insane than anywhere else in the world, I'm convinced. I haven't been to India, so I guess I can't truly say for sure, but I'd be pretty impressed if it was worse than here.

The problem is that there are just too many motorbikes and too few traffic laws. Well, enforced laws, anyway. We've shot a little bit of video that will hopefully illustrate the situation, but I'm not sure whether we'll be able to post it on the internet or not.

Ok, done with Picasa. Looks like it will upload. I sort of breezed through the photos as I was annoyed with doing all the work again; looks like I have 43 to post instead of the 60+ that we originally selected. Oh well.

We begin in Hanoi. As I mentioned, we flew on Vietnam Airlines from Vientiene to Hanoi. Lovely. Took 45 minutes instead of 32 hours on the buses. Sure, it cost about $200 more, but, yo, that's WORTH it!

All these photos were from like 2 weeks ago, so forgive me if the details are already hazy. We've taken another 200 photos in the meantime so we're a bit behind.

Also, looks like the internet place is about to close up shop soon. I'm going to keep my comments brief so we can finally get this [censored] updated.

Street vendor in Hanoi. If people buy and sell it, you can find it on the back of a bicycle or moto here.

Cool beer 2500 dong. 16,000 dong is $1, so yes, this is pretty damn cool.

The 7-year-old who served us our cool beer.

Our new favorite Vietnamese dish, Nuong Bo (or something). Basically self-barbecued beef with tons of ginger and garlic. You also get tomatoes, onions and the most amazing dip in the world.

This is the dip.

I got a very short haircut in Hanoi and also trimmed my beard. I feel you need to know this for some reason.

There's a picturesque lake right in the middle of the old district in Hanoi. Some pictures to follow.

I screwed up the composition on this shot just a bit, but these were some very pretty fresh spring rolls we had at a "training restaurant" in Hanoi. Basically the waiters are street kids that learn english and a skill working there. Good food, too.

The fried variety.

Dessert. This was a little prettier than it tasted.

Halong Bay. We spent the first night on a boat; the next on Cat Ba Island.

Not a great shot, but it gives you an idea of what the bay is like. Tons of limestone cliffs.

This, to me, is the essence of capitalism. We're out in the bay, in the middle of nowhere, when this lady rows up with her fully-stocked boat. You could get Oreos, a dozen types of booze, Pringles, you name it. I thought this country was communist!

Very cool and huge cave in the middle of Halong Bay.

View from the top.

Just thought this was funny. There were tons of kids under the age of 10 rowing their own boats around the bay. Who knows what they were doing.

Our room on board the boat. Not bad!

Some of the people we had meals with and hung out with during our Halong Bay excursion. Danielle from DC and Harry and Greg (son and father) from Australia.

The water is really blue-green here.

See?

Cool standalone karst cliff.

Dinner at our cheesy-ass "3-star" hotel on Cat Ba island. The room wasn't bad; the restaurant was fairly terrible.

Our tour included some "trekking," which was just a short hike over a mountain led by this really old dude. Also pictured is this Chinese guy who was a really funny character. Half the time he would sit silently by himself. The other half of the time he would try to get people to do crazy things like jump off our boat into the ocean while it was moving, or make them pose for photographs while he directed them like Austin Powers (yes! yes! yes! no! no! no! yeah baby!).

Perhaps because our guide was 143 years old, we took a lot of breaks.

Pho Bo, the most common meal in Vietnam. Delicious.

This was an interesting musical instrument we saw in a museum somewhere. You play it by clapping in front of the pipes.

Common problem for me in Asia: Things are too small.

Liz makes some friends.

This is soooooo standard, not sure why I'm even posting it.

I lost my sunglasses right before we left for Hanoi. No problem, I picked up this pair of Prada replicas for $5.

Some kids we met in Hue. They all were learning English to work in the tourism industry.

Pizza! We finally decided to give the ubiquitous Italian food a try in Asia. Not bad, although I don't think these results are typical of what you'd get.

Here's something you'll often see in Asia: a beautiful lakeside setting....

... so peaceful and nice...

... you almost don't notice the massive piles of rubbish nearby.

The town of Hoi An, where the tailors and shoemakers will ape any style you bring them. I call this the "Err Jordan."

That's all for now. I need to get back to the hostel... the internet shop owner has closed his metal gate 95% of the way to fool the police that it's closed. I don't want to get in trouble in this country for using the internet too late at night. Adios!

Frustrations mounting in Vietnam

2008-01-14T22:01:00.000-08:00

We've only been in Vietnam for about 11 days now, but we've already encountered more difficulties and frustrations here than we did during our entire time in Laos and Thailand, in my opinion.

The people here have a totally different sensibility toward tourists than the rest of Southeast Asia. They're all like used car salesmen, hawking their wares with unbridled aggression and enthusiasm. What that means on a daily basis is that for every city block you walk (as a Westerner), you will be hollered at, approached, questioned and/or hassled in some other way about a dozen times. The most common English words I hear are "hello" and "buy something," usually used in conjunction with one another. Other common phrases frequently spoken or shouted include "motorbike," "cyclo," "have a look my shop," and the really annoying, "where you go now?" None of your [censored] business where I go now!

And then there is the single worst thing about Vietnam: the driving. Sure, the streets are crazy in Europe, crowded, hilly and curvy in Thailand, but the traffic situation in Vietnam is flat-out insane. A big part of the problem is that I'm pretty sure every person here is issued a noisy 110cc Chinese scooter at birth, with detailed instructions on how to use the horn. So picture hundreds of scooters flooding each and every uncontrolled intersection, honking out of control, most likely piloted by one of the following categories of people:

- 12 year-old girl
- Family of 5 people including baby, dog and chicken
- Dude with industrial-sized steel drum and/or 23 foot-long metal pole
- 112 year-old man
- Drunk teenager with a death wish

And then there are the bus drivers. Despite the fact that they're driving a 40-ton bus with anywhere from 30 to 300 passengers, these guys think they're Mario Andretti and try to pass every other vehicle on the road. They tailgate constantly, honk their 600-decibel horns every other second, flash their brights, drift violently frome one side of the road to the other, and think nothing of passing uphill on a blind curve.

Oh for [censored] sake, I just spent an hour downloading picasa on this computer, only to find that it doesn't have a CD-rom and I won't be able to load pictures from here. So now I need to go waste another hour downloading it at the internet cafe next door! Son of a [censored]! This sort of thing has been extremely typical in the past few weeks.

I don't mean to crap on Vietnam. Even with all the annoyances, it's a pretty amazing place. We are loving the food, the shopping and the natural beauty. The noise and pace here just have a way of grating on you, though. I think it's a good thing we'll only be here for 3 weeks.

Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. I just moved internet places. This place only has computers with CD-roms, so I wasn't able to access the DVD I had burned the other day. However, the guy running the place just accessed it in his computer and shared the photos across the network. So Liz and I went through and edited all 300+ photos in Picasa (after downloading it again, of course), and got them ready to upload. But it didn't work because the system calendar is set to the year 2000!!!! Anytime you go to an encrypted page like gmail or yahoo, it gives you a warning about the site security certificate if your system time is off (it thinks the certificate won't be valid for another 7 years).

And of course, I don't have administrator rights to fix the system clock, and neither does the guy running the place. End result: No photos, 4 hours wasted. FUIDKOSDHGLKJSDHGL KSJDG HKLJSDHGLKSJDHGLKSDJGHLSGHLKSJkljdsfl kajhklfjhad kljfasdklfjsfadlkjsadf
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Quick update...

2008-01-09T23:39:00.000-08:00

No pics at the moment; we're about to leave Hanoi for Hue on a dreaded night bus. Once we arrive there and get settled, we'll download and post pictures.

In the meantime, here's what we've been up to.

- Getting my foot run over by a motorbike.

- Sleeping on a boat in Halong Bay, where the tour boats tie themselves together at night for better protection against pirates.

- Marching past Ho Chi Minh's well-preserved corpse.

- Enjoying the $0.16 Bia Hoi

- Discovering a new favorite dish, Nuoang Bo (or something like that), which is basically a plate of white and green onions, pineapple, tomatoes and raw beef with ginger and garlic that you barbecue yourself. Unlike the self-barbecue dish we tried on Christmas Eve (which was only OK), this was amazing.

- Buying eleventy billion DVDs for $0.95 each. Including all 18 seasons of The Simpsons for $18.

- Buying a new "North Face" backpack for $12.

All for now; we'll post again in Hue!

Remarkable discovery in Hanoi!

2008-01-05T17:47:00.000-08:00

Our hotel has a single computer with free internet, so I couldn't wait to post this shocking news:

You can buy a pint of freshly brewed, ice-cold beer on just about any corner here for $0.16.

More later as the story develops...

Super-sized update from Laos

2008-01-03T22:01:00.000-08:00

I'm going to write as fast as I can right now, because at 3pm Lao time Liz and I need to catch a tuk-tuk to the airport for our flight to Hanoi.

This is a slight change of plans; originally we were going to take the bus to Phonsavanh, maybe check out the Plain of Jars, then take another bus across the border to Vinh, and another to Hanoi. The only problem? That's like 30+ hours of buses and a week of travel or so. We just spent $120 on our Vietnam visas, and if we only get to spend 2 weeks there it would feel like a bit of a waste. So we're flying.

I have 60-ish photos to post right now; we'll see if I can finish this update in an hour, or if it will have to wait until Hanoi to be published.

From the end of our stay in Luang Prabang: We grabbed one of the boats up the Mekong to the "buddha cave." Pretty self-explanatory: It's a cave a ways down the river where the monks stored all these various buddha statues for some reason. I would pass on this in the future. The cave was neat but extremely crowded, and the boat ride was neat, but the ratio of boat riding to cave spelunking was not that neat.

On the boat.

These are pretty small statues.

Another flash setting.

On the bus ride from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng, Liz practiced her National Geographic-style photography.

Cover?

A few more beautiful parting shots from Luang Prabang.

We splurged on our last dinner in Luang Prabang... I had something called a "Spicy, Crazy Steak." It wasn't that spicy, but boy was it CRAZY! Ok, not really, it was pretty much an ordinary steak.

Another beautiful, bumpy ride. Liz was still on the tail end of a cold, and I had just started with a nasty sore throat.

One of many villagers along the side of the road.

Vang Vieng! One of the most beautiful settings I've ever seen. This town is weird. One the one hand, it's nestled among incredible limestone cliffs and bisected by the gentle, gorgeous Nam Song river. On the other hand, it's most famous for it's Friends reruns and marijuana milkshakes. More later.

Running into a herd of 50 or so cattle randomly is a pretty common experience in Laos.

Hey there fella!

In Vang Vieng, we spent 4 nights in a hotel that cost $3 per night. And you know what, it wasn't great, but it was better than our $100/night hotel in Manhattan. Amazing view, too.

The $3 hotel with the $1,000,000 sunset.

Our first night at a "Friends bar" in Vang Vieng. Basically, there are a dozen or so bars with cozy seating and lots of TVs along the main road in Vang Vieng. And for whatever reason, most of them show endless reruns of Friends (although it is possible to find bars showing The Simpsons, Family Guy or any number of movies as well).

Given that we were both sick, and hadn't zoned out in front of a TV for a while, we decided to indulge a bit. OK, we watched Friends every night. But that was after hours of vigorous outdoor activities! And culturally important... uh... travel experiences!

The scene from the other side. The other crazy thing about these places is that most of them have secret menus where you can order pizza or milkshakes laced with pot, opium or amphetamines. We passed.

Ok, here's one of the vigorous outdoor activities. Spelunking at Pak Ou Cave. This was really, really cool, unlike the Buddha cave. It's a super-steep ascent into a huge, dark cave with shimmering stalactites, crazy rock formations and, supposedly, 400 meters to explore.

We didn't explore the full depth of the cave as it really is enormous (as well as completely dark and scary once you get like halfway in), but I did climb down a mildly treacherous path for this photo op.

Afterward, you get to swim here:

Rope swing!

The cave was part of a 30km loop that we completed on this motorbike. We only had to stop once to avoid a stampede.

You see more umbrellas here than you do in Portland or Seattle.

Standard.

Some more beauty shots of Vang Vieng.

At one point on this loop we ran into a family from Kansas. Mom and dad were sharing a scooter, and their three boys each had one of their own. One of them got going a little fast when a chicken ran out in front of him and he laid the bike down. The kid and the chicken were both OK, but the bike needed some work. Luckily the entire village instantly swarmed the scene.

It looks OK here, but this road actually sucked for motorbiking. A dirtbike would have been a lot better than the 110cc scooter we rode (which I'm pretty sure was assembled in China out of recycled lead pinball machines).

Gaaaaah! I've broken and re-broken the "largest spider ever seen" record on this trip. This was right before we went tubing down the Nam Song.

So, tubing is the other big thing in Vang Vieng (besides Friends, obv). You rent an inner tube for $4, then spend the afternoon floating down the river. Along the way there are dozens of bars that will reel you in with sticks so you can enjoy plenty of beer and shots of lao-lao along the way. Most of the bars also have zip lines and giant rope swings to launch you into the river where it's deep enough.

Good times.

This room cost $6, but was 1,000 times worse than our $3 room. Our first night in Vientiene.

Note the flush handle. Also: No sink.

Unlike Thailand, Laos is known for good bread (because they were colonized by the French). You can get good bread anywhere, including this $1.50 pork sandwich I got on the street.

Ah, engrish.

Another Mekong sunset. This is still Vientiene. The Mekong isn't so mighty right here at the moment because we're in the middle of dry season. Instead, there's a massive beach that disappears by the time April rolls around.

We tried to go out to a nice French dinner while we were here. Mission: Sort of accomplished. We both had slightly chewy steaks that were smothered in reasonably tasty sauce (hers was roquefort-based; mine mustard-based). The pictures of the steaks came out disgusting, so I'm posting these instead.

Buddha park! This is a really weird attraction here in Vientiene that's straight out of a Tim Burton movie. It's filled with bizarre sculptures based on a blend of Buddhist and Hindu beliefs. This pumpkin-shaped building is supposed to represent heaven, hell and Earth, or something. You can climb inside (through a demon's mouth) and all through the various levels up onto the roof.

View from atop the pumpkin.

Some more weird sauce.

It was built in the '50s, so there are a few modern touches.

This is the centerpiece of the park. A giant reclining Buddha. It's a lot bigger than it looks here.

No comment.

It's a pig, standing on a man, pulling his ponytail back, about to kick him in the... oh, I give up.

That's all for now. Wow, I wrapped that up in under 50 minutes. We're going to go enjoy one last chocolate croissant here in Vientiene before we fly over to Vietnam (Hanoi).

As always, I have a lot more to say, but I'm thinking maybe I should save the general stuff for the very end of the Asian portion of our trip. I guess I can give you a preview:

- Asia is awesome

BUT

- Asia is bizarre and insane

Happy new year, and drop either Liz or I an email if you get a chance. Hope all's well back home.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

2007-12-26T04:48:00.000-08:00

Well, it's taken an hour, but I've finally uploaded our photos since crossing the border into Laos. I'll just jump right in with photos and commentary and save some general stuff for the end.

Beerlao. What can you say? Most places it costs a dollar. It comes in a 640ml bottle (about 22oz), unless you get the Beerlao Dark (a lager) or the Beerlao Light (which I've never seen). Those are 330ml. Anyway, it's obviously delicious.

Whoops. Back up a step. This is the night market in Chiang Mai, which is in Thailand, not Laos. Sometimes our camera files the photos out of order. Bear with me.

This innocent looking plate of vegetables and basket of rice is probably the spiciest meal I've had in 15 years. The culprit is that little bowl of Jeow (sp?), kind of like the Lao equivalent of salsa or curry. You can eat this a lot of different ways, but I think the most common is to ball up the sticky rice with your hand, then make a flat disc to grab some of the jeow and veggies. Anyway, it was insanely hot. I can't claim to handle very hot spices anymore, but I *have* gotten better in the last month or so. But this was definitely a little out of my league.

Another meal with Jeow as the centerpiece. This one we ate in the middle of the Nam Tha river. Not pictured are a couple fried fish and a giant basket of sticky rice.

At the end of our day-long kayaking trip. More details to follow.

The river was really colorful at this point, but hard to capture.

OK, here's where I can tell the whole kayak story. We signed up for a one-day kayak trip with Green Discovery tours in Luang Nam Tha. We toyed with the idea of doing another multiple-day trek, as the area was supposed to be a great base for them, but in the end it would have been too expensive. Also I was tired of sleeping in villages. So we did a one-day kayak trip (which was still expensive, especially by Lao standards). Our guide was Phet, pictured below. I have been kayaking 3 times, and I am a better kayaker than Phet. This should tell you something. However, he was a very nice guy, so we let it slide with the tour agency when we were filling out feedback forms afterward. Anyway, the kayaking was fun, if a little frustrating. Liz and I were sharing a kayak, and at first I was getting annoyed that she couldn't steer from the front seat while paddling. Then we switched, and I found that I couldn't do it either. Sorry, Liz! We switched again, because with me in the back we had better overall control (even though it was super uncomfortable for me). It was also frustrating trying to communicate with Phet. He spoke decent English, but wasn't exactly forthcoming with the details. At the end of our trip, he kind of pulled over to the side and started speaking to a villager. We just kept going... right into some more rapids. So we shouted back, "Hey, Phet, is this where we're stopping?" Of course it was. Thanks for telling us, buddy. Earlier, when it was about lunchtime, he asked us if we wanted to stop and eat. "Whenever you're ready... it's up to you," was our reply. So about 2 minutes later he crashed his kayak into a giant rock in the middle of the river and told us that's where we'd eat lunch. I looked longingly at the dozens of flat sandy beaches that surrounded us before I hauled our kayak up onto the rock and sat down to one of the most uncomfortable meals of my life. Again, Phet was not a bad guy. Just an inexperienced guide. For $78, you'd expect a little better.

The bus ride from Luang Nam Tha to Luang Prabang was very scenic toward the end, but it was hard to get a picture out the window without having your arm ripped off by oncoming traffic. Nevertheless, we scored this one, although we missed all the gorgeous mountain ranges.

This is a little too happy for 7.5 hours into a 9 hour bus ride, don't you think?

Sunset over the Mekong. We snapped this one at one of the many riverside restaurants within 5 minutes of our guest house.

God bless America, this was our Christmas Eve dinner. A giant plate of raw meat.

Not to worry; we cooked it over this contraption. While the meat was self-explanatory (meat + fire = good eatin'), we also made a soup that inexplicably turned out delicious. Basically you pour water around the outside trough of the metal bowl, add some noodles, veggies, chilis and eggs, and it comes out amazing!

Brian and Brooke, our new friends from Philly, enjoying their XL Western Christmas Table Barbecue Dinner Deluxe.

Our side of the table.

Later we went to a bar called hi.ve that was running a 5 drinks for $5 special. I can't believe a place like this exists in Laos... it was just like any club you might find in Seattle or Portland, except you would never be able to get 5 drinks for $5 at a hip place like this in the States.

Your standard Christmas morning in Laos, exchanging presents.

There's a great store in town with DVDs for 20,000 kip each, and if you buy 5, you get a 6th free. That works out to about $1.70 per DVD. Holla.

Ok, this is some awesome Engrish notebook we picked up a lot earlier on the trip. I just photographed it in case we end up losing it at some point.

Yes, it reads, "playing whit myself" on the spine for no reason whatsoever.

More detail.

Christmas Day. We had the DVDs; Brian and Brooke had the laptop (I left mine in Bangkok so I didn't have to lug it around these "rural" areas, which, of course, have wifi on every freaking corner). So we watched "Rescue Dawn" together. 16 stars out of 20 on the Seth scale.

The exchange rate in Lao right now is about 9,500 kip to the dollar. The largest note that they make is 50,000 kip. You do the math.

If you want to be a huge baller, move to SE Asia.

The Christmas tree at our guest house was a little sad (although the guest house itself is lovely).

Artistic shots of one of the Wats in town. Credit: Liz.

Ok, the internet went out as I was writing this last night. Luckily I had all the copy saved, but it's now Thursday the 27th as I'm writing this. FINALLY the pictures load. God, the internet is really slow here. It's generally faster in Thailand, I guess.

So yesterday we took a minibus up to the local waterfall. Liz had been up there before and said it was worth the trip. Bonus: They had this awesome Tiger, Phet (yes, the same as our kayaking guide). You can get really close to the tiger, unlike at zoos in the States. They also had some bears that were pretty cool, but we didnt' get any good photos.

Part of the waterfall; rope swing just out of the picture to the right.

Another part.

It was cold, but how often do you get to swim in a waterfall? If you're in southeast Asia, the answer is as often as you like.

Ok, I'm not going to press my luck by writing more. I'm just gonna post this and save the other stuff for later when the internet is more reliable.

I completed the Huay Xai 3k Fun Run and all I got was this stupid visa...

2007-12-22T21:22:00.000-08:00

Last time I posted, we just arrived back in Chiang Mai from Pai, and were about to make our way further north to the border town Chiang Kong.

In my head, the plan was to arrive in Chiang Kong, spend the night, and cross the border to Huay Xai in the morning. Then we'd spend one night there, and grab a bus the next day to Luang Nam Tha.

However, we met a couple other travelers that were going to cross the border that evening (the crossing is open until 6pm; we arrived at 3:30 or so), so we decided to be ambitious and join them. There were two small problems with this plan.

1. You need a passport-sized photo of yourself (in addition to your actual passport) to gain admittance to Laos.

2. I needed to stop at an ATM before we crossed. Apparently ATMs are rare in Laos and they usually only let you withdraw 700,000 kip (or about $70).

It was easy enough to get passport-sized photos; they had a service set up right at the border and it took 5 minutes. But all the ATMs were 1,000 meters or so back into the town. We had about an hour left until customs closed, but you have to leave yourself enough time between getting your exit stamp from Thailand and catching a ferry across the river to Laos. The last thing you want to have happen is to officially exit Thailand without a way to get to Laos.

So I ran the 1,000 meters back into town to the first ATM. It was only 80 degrees or so by this time so the heat wasn't too bad... but the pollution was pretty awful. And the first ATM didn't work. Some guy told me that there were more another 500 meters down the road... so off I went. After waiting 5 minutes for the person in front of me to finish (the longest 5 minutes ever), I quickly grabbed some cash and started off on the 2nd half of my unexpected 3k fun run.

Long story short, we made the crossing just fine (although I was purple and dripping with sweat at the Thai customs office) and spent the night in Huay Xai.

The next day we took another long bumpy bus to Luang Nam Tha, where we spent 3 nights. We did a day-long kayak trip one of the days; I'll write more about that later. Then we caught another long bus (8.5 hours) to Luang Prabang, where we'll stay through Christmas.

Gotta run for now, but since we'll be in one place for a few days I should get a chance to update again with more photos and details. Hope everyone is having a good time back home. Hard to believe that tomorrow is Christmas Eve... given that it's probably 93 degrees outside right now.

Bye Bye Pai

2007-12-16T22:07:00.000-08:00

Last time I posted, we were in Chiang Mai. Right now, we're in... Chiang Mai. But we did head over to Pai (pronounced "bye") for the weekend. It was actually pretty nice, despite some reports we had read to the contrary. Apparently the party scene was much more mellow than usual, however, because of the elections going on in Thailand right now. Turns out, nobody is allowed to sell alcohol during the elections! We found a couple restaurants that would still serve us falang, but all the bars were closed, and they even covered up the beer in 7-11 with newspaper and cardboard. Funny stuff.

Anyway, we have a bunch of photos to share, so I'll just jump right in.

Thousands of lights near the walled center of Chiang Mai, still up a few weeks after the King's 80th birthday celebration.

This is a dish called Khao Soi... which we're eating at a restaurant called, "Just Khao Soi." As you might expect, it's the only dish they serve. The dish is tough to find outside of northern Thailand and Burma, which doesn't make sense because it's absolutely delicious. Liz discovered it last time she was here, and she turned me onto it during this trip. Basically it's a rich, creamy (well, the Thai version is creamy, anyway) curry with egg noodles, crispy noodles and usually chicken. You are also given a dazzling array of condiments to make the dish your own, including coconut cream, hot peppers, fish sauce, sugar, shallots, lime, banana and some sort of pickled vegetables.

A closer look.

Not all the food in Thailand is delicious.

One day in Chiang Mai we rented a motorbike and drove up to Doi Suthep, a nearby mountain temple. According to legend, someone sent an elephant up there to meet with a monk (or something). Yeah, I didn't exactly learn the whole story. But basically the elephant climbs all the way up this huge hill, and then dies. And that's where they built the temple.

Another night, Liz found a "rooftop bar" where we could go check out the sunset. She thought it was called "THC Bar" or something... but didn't think that was REALLY the name. Of course it is. The place has this insane reggae/marijuana theme, and we were a little embarassed to be there. But the view was decent, and it was mellow (there were like 2 other people there) so we had a drink.

This is one of the worst massages I've ever gotten. Good thing it only cost $1.80 for half an hour. Some people may have enjoyed it, but I personally did not appreciate this 90 pound woman balancing her entire weight on my shoulder blades with her elbows.

Some temple that Liz checked out while I was losing money at poker.

Pig face, anyone? Earlier in the trip, Gavin and Emily told us they had spied some lucky dog eating a pig face in the street. Must have nicked it from the market.

Another day in Chiang Mai we took a Thai cooking class. This was a lot of fun, and we got to get out of the city a bit. The company we signed up with took us out into the country to their farm, where we walked around and saw how they grow the ingredients to our meal.

The farm was lovely.

Getting ready to make curry paste.

gogogogogogogogogo

In the kitchen, where we made pad thai, papaya salad and stir-fry.

Our instructors.

Our Pad Thai. Not bad, eh?

I freaking made this!

This is the biggest spider I've ever seen in my life that wasn't part of a zoo exhibit. It was on the way back down from Doi Suthep; we stopped to check out a waterfall. This [censored] was [censored] huge. I am getting the chills just thinking about it.

Liz channels Tarzan.

On the way to the famous Riverside restaurant in Chiang Mai, we had a lovely sunset.

I pledge, under allegiance, to not consume Beer Chang during the election weekend...

Day trip from Pai. This is called the "grand canyon" of Pai, or something. Anyway this path was pretty nuts.

I wish I could zoom in and crop this for better effect. That's me, if you can't tell.

Another in the continuing series of Lady Cop Speranza shots.

Small but cool waterfall we hiked to after failing to reach the larger waterfall.

Pai is a hippie town, and therefore herbal tea is extremely popular.

Colorful display at the night market in Pai.

The view from The Sanctuary, an "expensive" restaurant in Pai. We went there to have a couple smoothies and watch the sunset.

Street pancakes. These were about the size of a silver dollar. They're sweet and a little bit crunchy and coconutty.

A health food restaurant in Pai that we liked quite a bit. They had a terrific selection of tea and coffee (french press, no more nescafe for me!), and great food too. One morning I ordered two pancakes, and they brought them on separate plates.

Pretty self-explanatory.

In addition to beautiful fabrics, cool T-shirts and fancy imitation watches, they sell some crap on the street too.

Rando cute kids.

That's all for now. Tomorrow we head to Chang Kong, and the next day we will cross the border into Laos. I'm guessing there will be pretty decent internet there, so hopefully I'll be able to continue updating the blog and keeping in touch via email.

Ciao from Chiang Mai

2007-12-10T02:01:00.000-08:00

Our last installment was posted in Sukhothai, the first capital of Thailand. Since then we've made our way further north to Chiang Mai, which is one of the larger, busier cities in Thailand.

As expected, I love it here. I always have a great time in cities with lots of stuff going on. There are loads of great restaurants and bars, good shopping, temples, you name it. It's also a good place to rent a motorbike and tool around outside the city, as we may do later this week.

For the time being, we've signed up for a thai cooking course. It starts tomorrow morning; they pick us up at our guest house and we go out to the country to help pick the vegetables for the meal. Then we learn how to make 5 or 6 different dishes, which we then get to eat. It costs about $27 per person which is insanely expensive compared to most things here, but it includes an awful lot of food, plus transportation and all the instruction.

Back to Chiang Mai. I could stay here for a month. More, even. But Liz gets a little bored in city settings like this... well, in any setting I suspect. We just have slightly different philosophies about traveling. Once I find a spot I enjoy, I don't like to budge until I feel ready. She would rather see more places.

It's true that there are lots of cool places to visit, and I've enjoyed each spot we've been so far. But the actual travel wears on me... long rides in rickety old vehicles through mountainous terrain stress me out.

At the moment it looks like we're going to compromise somewhat and stick around in Chiang Mai for a few more days, then head to a town called Pai for the weekend. After that, it's back to Chiang Mai and then up to the extreme north of Thailand, a town called Chang Kong (or something) where we can cross the border into Laos.

Hard to believe that our first 30 days here are almost up!

From there, we'll have 40 days or so combined for Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia. We'll only spend a few days in Cambodia though; most of those days are earmarked for Laos and Vietnam.

I've gotten a lot of feedback on the blog, and also some questions, so I'll take the time now to address a few things.

Photos

We've heard tons of compliments about the photos; thank you very much! But I have to mention that a great deal of the credit, certainly more than 50%, goes to Liz. She's taken many of the pictures that I consider my favorites. We've argued some about which ones to post here, of course, with my inclination being to only post my favorite shots (she would prefer to post some that aren't necessarily great photos, but help tell the story).

Budget

Strangely enough, we've met a lot of fellow travelers that are going the entire year, just like us. I've been curious about how they're paying their way (because our method is hardly orthodox), but I've refrained from asking so far.

Our budget is about $36,000, which is drawn from my poker winnings over the past 3 years. Ridiculous, I know, but true! I avoid mentioning this to most people because, as you might expect, I encounter a lot of skepticism.

In any case, we spent about $5,800 on plane tickets, not counting our East Coast jaunt which cost about another $1,000. With all the flights paid for, we can use the remaining money as we see fit. Of course we're trying not to spend the whole amount, but it's there if we need it. We did sell our house prior to departing, but we're not touching that money. We need to buy another house when we get back!

So far we're overspending by just a bit if we want the trip to last a full year. But that's mostly due to Italy (and Switzerland) being more expensive than we anticipated.

Of course the prices here are making up for it, but I'm still guessing that we may shorten the trip to 10 or 11 months instead of the full 12. We'll just play it by ear when we get there... the cost of living in Mexico and Argentina are wild cards at this point.

It also depends how many fake Rolexes I buy here in Thailand. Shiny things are tempting.

Well, that's enough Q&A for now. I'll try to make at least one more post before we head to Laos, hopefully with photos.

Finally: Photos

2007-12-06T19:51:00.000-08:00

Well, I finally found a computer that's slightly faster than our old 386 from 1991, so I'm going to post some of our photos.

One caveat: I still couldn't edit the photos. Google Picasa resized them for me and I'm calling it good. But just as a disclaimer, these won't be as crisp and bright as usual because I haven't been able to work any photoshop magic.

I guess that's it; here are the photos.

Random flower. This would look cooler if I could brighten it some.

The bamboo beer cups Johnny made.

Our friend Austin, who has been living in Thailand for 8 years (I think) and is the author of Real Thai. He also writes for Lonely Planet and is a freelance photographer. Check out his site.

Fried Morning Glory. Yum.

Some shrimp we picked up at the market near Austin's house.

A salad from the same market. Not sure what it's called.

Colorful kids from the parade in Mae Sot.

Bucket 'o live eels or snakes or worms or something.

Fried bugs, of course.

Kid in Mae Sot.

Emily and Gavin, our trek-mates.

SARS scare! Just kidding, these are the dust masks we got for one ride in the song tau.

Really cool ponds on the way to Tee Lor Su waterfall.

Artsy.

This is not Tee Lor Su. Just a little pre-waterfall.

This is Tee Lor Su.

Also this.

This is Victor, one of our guides.

A full bottle of rum and a bag of candles to play with. Good times. Good times.

Gratuitous flower shot.

Johnny, our other tour guide. Dude's a badass. He did the entire hike in flip-flops. Here he climbed a tree to have a smoke.

The edge of the falls... a 200m drop. No guardrails, ropes or any of that stuff to be found. Heck, you're not even supposed to BE up here!

Group shot up at the top.

Weird bug that looked like a plant.

One of the bridges we crossed. Unfortunately this photo doesn't really capture the terror.

Dinner and dice in the Karen Village.

The Italian John Locke.

Across from our hut in the morning. These are the elephants that Opart and presumably John Locke were going to ride.

Ah, this shot captures some of the fear. No handrails... and you have to walk across these skinny bamboo chutes. I felt like my foot could easily slip between the gaps (they were tied only 2 or 3 wide).

Orchid Hibiscus Guest House. AKA, heaven.

At breakfast they serve you honey straight off the honeycomb. Sometimes a few bees are still attached.

Some shots around Sukhothai's historic ruins.

Some friendly kids along the side of the road.

One of the wats lit up at night.

More beauty shots from the Orchid Hibiscus.

Large seated buddha that seemed remarkably well-preserved.

More shots around the ruins.

Liz atop her Alligator bike.

This morning, we got up at 5:45 to see the sunrise at Wat Si Chum. It was OK, but the sunrise wasn't as spectacular as we were promised.

That's it for now. I've been on the computer all morning; time to hit the pool.

Dan and Liz

From the Heart of Darkness to the Lap of Luxury

2007-12-04T23:40:00.000-08:00

After our jungle adventures, Liz and I spent an extra day in Mae Sot (mostly so I could have my wet clothes laundered), and then caught a bus for Sukhothai, the ancient capital of Thailand.

Before coming, we had heard a couple of rave reviews for a particular hostel here, the Orchid Hibiscus Guest House, and it has turned out to be just as lovely as everyone promised.

We have our own bathroom with a hot shower (minus the cockroach and salamander we had in Mae Sot) and the room has air conditioning and a sweet 4-post bed with built-in mosquito net. Not that you really need the net in this hotel (in Mae Sot we could have used one).

We also have a swimming pool and jacuzzi. And there is a peaceful little hammock area for chilling out in the shade. Breakfast is included.

Oh yeah, it costs $24 per night. That's a lot for Thailand, but I'd expect to pay $200 or more for something similar in the states.

The only problem is that this computer freezes every time I try to edit photos, so I guess they're going to have to wait a while. Asrhksajdhglkajdsfglasdsd.

I think we're going to stick around Sukhothai a while longer as there are a lot of cool ruins to explore on bicycle (20 baht to rent per day... about 75 cents) and we are completely in love with the hotel. Well, I am, anyway...

I promise photos as soon as I find a faster computer.