Elephants, hippos, and zebras - oh my!

I'm writing from an internet cafe in Kasane, Botswana. We just left the oh-so-luxurious Elephant Valley. We hadn't planned this part of the trip, so we just fell into it. We left Livingstone (near Victoria Falls), took a ferry over to Botswana, and were picked up at the border. We boarded a river boat with our new-found Michigan missionary friends and cruised up the Chobe River to see "game." We saw herds of kudu and impala grazing on the shores, two elephants using their trunks as snorkels as they crossed the river to join a bachelor herd on an island, a pile of 45 hippos sprawled in the mud, a fish eagle posing regally, crocodiles sunning themselves, and many up-close looks at homo touristicos. We felt lucky for seeing all that, but then we were loaded into a safari jeep with our guide, Nicodemus, and driven into the national park, where we got even closer to giraffes, elephants, zebras, hippos, warthogs, and all manner of antelope-like creatures. At the end of our game drive, we went to Elephant Valley Lodge, where we spent the next two days in supreme luxury in the middle of the bush (for a substantial discount, too, thanks to last minute planning!). The lodge maintains a watering hole that attracts elephants and other game all through the day and night. The kicker is that the watering hole is about 100 feet from a viewing station, and only a little farther to the lounge area, so we ate meals and played chess within full view of dozens of elephants. For two days. It was awesome. We're near the end of our trip together now. We'll have another day in Livinstone, then 2 days in Joburg, then we'll part ways.

Emily's Travel Injuries (Part II, including companions)

I haven't updated my list of injuries lately. I had unexplained hives again back in Cambodia, and I'm pretty sure I hurt myself another time, but now we've got the good stuff. You know how your medicine bottles always say to swallow medicine with a full glass of water? Well, I forgot about my doxycycline the other morning until just after I finished a Coke, so I swallowed it without any liquid. It felt uncomfortable at the time, but I didn't think much of it. Well, now it's three days later, and it hurts to drink, eat, and swallow my saliva. Apparently, the doxycycline dissolved in my esophagous, eating away at the lining and creating an esophageal ulcer. Isn't that nice. So now I'm chugging Maalox (nasty stuff) and trying to avoid spicy or acidic food.

I'm in Africa now with Allen Frost, my childhood friend (his mom and my mom were college roommates), and his friend Catharine from Swarthmore. We started out in Cape Town, South Africa, which is just a stunning place. It's cradled between mountains and ocean, a little ways north of the Cape of Good Hope. Let's just say Allen and I have taken our Christmas card photos for the year. We rented a car, so we drove down all the way to Cape Point, navigating hairpin turns perched on mountains that abruptly drop to the sea. We also saw baboons, springbok (antelope-like creatures), and penguins! The penguins kind of freaked me out, actually. We were taking a tour of Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners were held, and every time I turned around there'd be a penguin. Standing in the middle of the road, staring at me. It was a little creepy.

We also spent some time in the wine country around the Cape. It's sort of like Napa and Sonoma, but with more dramatic scenery. It was a little surreal; we kept having to remind ourselves we were in Africa, what with the B&B, French restaurants, vineyards, university students, cold weather, etc. We actually met a girl working at a vineyard who is considering coming to the University of Arkansas for track and field, so we gave her the low-down on Fayetteville.

Today, though, there's no need to remind ourselves we're in Africa. We flew to Zambia this morning and stepped off the plain into a hot, dusty savanna. We saw Victoria Falls this afternoon - it's absolutely gorgeous. We were walking along a misty path admiring the rainbows, when Allen slipped and scraped his knee up pretty badly... so we retreated back to our taxi driver, who laughed at us but took us to see an elephant so we would feel better. This one was wild and not miserable-looking, but it was alone, and the driver was worried that it was hurt. :(

Time to get dinner now. Hope you're all doing well! Much love.

Update: Vietnam is one country

Hello from Bangkok again! I'm back from Vietnam and staying here one night before I leave tomorrow night at 2 AM for Johannesburg. A lot has happened since I last posted. Bill left me all alone in Hanoi, and I was despondent for a couple days, and actually physically ill as well although I think that was probably due to the water in my lemonade the day before. But then - sunlight shone through the clouds, angels began singing, and Alex rescued me from loneliness and boredom (Constantly being with someone 24-7 for two weeks makes you a little dependent, apparently). A couple other St. Anford people showed up as well - some of you may remember Liz Cretti, of SHPRC fame, and I'm not sure any of you will know Matt Evans because he was a little older (and wiser). We ate at food stalls and at Alex's favorite restaurants, took long walks by the water, spent hours studying Vietnamese supermarket offerings, and sang karaoke...

Sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti
I seek to cure what's deep inside, frightened of this thing that I've become

It's gonna take a lot to drag me away from you
There's nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do
I bless the rains down in Africa
Gonna take some time to do the things we never had

If anyone really understands what Toto is singing about, let me know. Otherwise I will just enjoy the melody and assume that all the references to Africa are meant to get me excited about going there.

So - back to real life. Since Alex actually has a job (I know, isn't that lame?), he did not join Matt, Liz, and I on our epic journey to Halong Bay, a heavily touristed but beautiful bay where huge limestone karsts jut dramatically out of the water like so:


That's not actually my picture. I do have about 100 pictures of the sunset, which you'll get to see sometime if you're very good. Anyway, we were supposed to be on a boat with Alex's friend Natalie, who apparently knows everyone in Asia. Some of her college friends were visiting her, and we were all going to drink and be merry. Somewhere along the line, though, the reassurance of "Yes, yes, of course you'll be on the same boat" became "Oh no, you will not be on the same boat. No, we cannot change this now." We persevered, and our kind, concerned guide persuaded the captain of our boat to anchor near Natalie's boat, even though this was an inconvenience, because they are different companies or don't like each other or something. We thought we'd swim over after dinner and hang out. But as we were preparing to leave, our guide became agitated and started talking about jellyfish. Jellyfish veterans Matt and Liz merely scoffed, while I started wondering how I knew Natalie and her friends would even be fun to hang out with, much less fun enough to offset jellyfish stings. Just then, a commotion arose from the back of the boat. A crew member had jumped into the water to swim, our guide told us, and he'd been stung by the jellyfish. She led us down below deck to the kitchen. Someone called out in Vietnamese, and the victim emerged from a darkened doorway, shirtless and shivering. They shone a light on him, and a collective gasp of horror went up from the crowd at the angry welts covering his torso. So - we decided to stay on our boat and teach our 3 new Australian friends how to play Kings.

We met a lot of people on the Halong Bay trip. The Australian girls were a lot of fun. We also kept running into a British couple with 3 young children who had been traveling for 15 months. Harry, their youngest, got lots of rides on hips and shoulders.

After we returned from Halong Bay, we had to split up. Matt and Liz went to join Alex and his girlfriend Maria in Sapa, where Bill and I had visited. I couldn't bring myself to face the 8 hour train ride again, so I was looking around for things to do when I learned that Diana Dinh, yet another friend from college, was in Saigon down south. Diana's family fled Vietnam when the North Vietnamese took the Saigon, and this was the first time she'd been to Vietnam and met her numerous relatives. You'd think she'd be wide-eyed, walking around with her mouth open, but instead she settled right in, berating motorbike drivers with the demeanor of a testy auntie. I met her siblings, who are just as crazy and fun as she is, and together we researched the tastiness of dishes at food stalls and restaurants around town.

...which brings me to today. I'm back in Bangkok with a day to kill before I leave Asia. The one thing I really want to do is get some pad thai at a street stall - surprisingly Bill and I never had pad thai when we were in Thailand, and it seems a shame to go home without trying it.

As a side note, aren't we all glad that the Bush administration is now trying to cut Medicare payments? What's that, Grandma? You need a hip replacement? Too bad, your local hospital has stopped taking Medicare patients because they lose so much money on them. Need a stent to prop open your arteries? Too bad, we've cut Medicare's already low payments by a third. Well, on the bright side, Bush can celebrate, because as we lose our grandparents who don't receive adequate medical care, that's fewer people Medicare has to pay for anyway.

Pictures!!

I just uploaded a selection of the pictures from the last couple weeks. More captions coming soon. Available at http://picasaweb.google.com/eneaville

Turkish beefsteak - as good as Spam?

I just spent about 2 hours emailing and calling people with Skype to resolve a few problems I was having with my ATM and credit cards, and it was so hard because there's this insane Turkish man two computers down gesturing wildly and absolutely bellowing into his headset. He's been on the phone for THREE HOURS now. Apparently I'm told he comes here every night and it's the same thing. It was terrible trying to use those automated phone systems because they thought his bellowing was me trying to enter my credit card information. It went something like this: "Please enter... [pause] ... I'm sorry. I didn't understand that. Please try again to enter... [pause] ... I'm sorry. In order for us to transfer you to a customer service representative, you must enter valid information. Please enter..." I'm really grateful to whoever invented the zero button to bypass the menus - if it weren't for that brilliant soul, I'd still be stuck in automated phone system hell.

The rest of us in the internet cafe keep giggling and yelling to each other, but he doesn't notice at all. I don't know Turkish of course, but I keep hearing a word that sounds suspiciously like "beef steak," which would be weird, because no one makes intense 3 hour calls yelling about beef steak... right??

Seriously though, I can't handle staying here much longer. I think my right ear is losing some hearing. Bill and I went to Sapa a couple days ago. We took the day train up so we'd see the countryside and maybe meet some people. Other than it being a 10 hour trip in a 400 degree oven, it was pretty fun. We met a nice 10 year old girl who taught us some Vietnamese. We drew pictures for each other and traded the English and Vietnamese words. There was a bit of ambiguity though. There's this strange thing that looks like a triangle with four ears that's labeled mang, with the little bowl-shaped accent over the a. Anyone know what that is? Kim?

Oh my god. Peace... He left. Ahhh... I can think again...

CRAP. CRAP CRAP CRAP. He just went to the bathroom. Oh, my poor head. I'm sorry guys, I'm going to have to stop. Hope everyone's doing well! Thanks everyone for commenting and sending emails - it's great to hear from you.

Aki Ra's Landmine Museum

Quick posting in response to questions from Mom and Paul - yes, landmines are definitely still a huge problem. We went to a museum about them yesterday in Siem Reap. The museum was created and is run by Aki Ra, a former child soldier who fought for 3 armies and laid many landmines. After the war, he said he felt some sense of responsibility for removing the mines, so he has devoted his life to it. In addition to removing tens of thousands of mines in Cambodia and Yugoslavia, running this museum to educate people, and educating villagers on how to remove mines so that they can farm their land again without fear (the UN uses more sophisticated detection systems that are supposed to be safer, but also much more expensive and time-consuming...and the villagers need to get on with life), he also has adopted several children who are either victims of landmines or victims of the war. They live with him and receive schooling. Over the years his efforts have inspired a lot of international support, and a college fund has been established to help these kids go to college. Aki Ra also accepts donations to help pay for the costs of dismantling landmines with his team. You can read more about his story and how to help at http://www.akiramineaction.com/. According to various newspaper articles posted around Aki Ra's museum, there are an estimated 3 million landmines remaining in Cambodia. Worldwide, 40 people are casualties of landmines every day. And the U.S. has not signed the world's landmine treaty that would prevent us from producing, selling, or stockpiling landmines... It seems that Clinton promised the military would look into alternative options and we would sign by 2006.

Mom, I will send some other links about ways to help later.

We arrived in Hanoi last night, so we're pretty eager to do some exploring here. More later.

Emily's Travel Injuries (Part I)

Hi Everyone,

This is Bill with a guest posting, the main purpose of which is to provide a list of Emily's travel injuries to date. In chronological order they are:
-Bruised back and elbow, from trying to water slide down the steps of a Buddhist Temple in Bangkok (or, as she claims, slipping).
-Sliced toe, from a wet rock on Ko Samet that looked at her wrong.
-Multiple blisters, from a vicious combination of sandals, water and sand.
-Mysterious cut on thumb, possibly a result of bad karma.
-Ant bites. This might be the worst one. Seriously. There are some absolutely terrifying red ants here. One of them somehow managed to climb up my clothes and lodge his pincer or whatever in my chest, and he hung on for dear life. I won't get into the details of the fight, but it was messy.

The net result of all this is that we are rapidly running out of bandaids and moleskin, and Emily has developed an acute phobia of little red things (including the ants, red dirt, and the red threads on a blanket at the guesthouse).

But other than that things are great. Today's temples were pretty incredible, including a couple that are nearly overgrown with giant trees and one with some of the most amazing carvings I've ever seen in my life (not an exaggeration, google Banteay Srei). Our experience with children beggars/vendors was also a little more positive, though we didn't go downtown today, which is where it seems like most of the worse-off hang out. Emily ended up making friends with a bunch of little girls, including one who told us her name was "Thoi" which means butt in Khmer, and I was quizzing a little crew on world capitals (apparently one of their tricks is to ask where you're from and then tell you what the capital of your country is. They were particularly strong on Western Europe and other wealthy regions, but weren't quite as lucky with African countries for some reason). All the kids seem to have the same little lines they use and games they try to play with tourists. It gets old after a little while, but they're usually pretty cute so it's ok, except for the one guy who followed us around for ten minutes and then got pissed at me when I wouldn't buy anything. He was less fun.

It has been a little tough at times though, especially when you walk by landmine victims. The guesthouse has a huge list of organizations we can donate to after we get back (and it would be incredibly hard not to if you spent even a day here), but having to say no to a crowd of ten people begging you for money or to buy their bracelets is pretty heartwrenching.

I will let Emily tell you about the Khmer Cultural Dancing show we went to tonight. By far the most expensive meal we've had on the trip, and most likely the worst food, but the dancing, and the Japanese tourists, made it all worth it. Tomorrow we're probably going to check out a couple more temples, maybe hang around the town market a bit, and then we have a 8:00 flight to Hanoi to meet up with her friend Alex for a bit before heading up to the mountains (on a ten hour train ride).

Bill