Motorbike Ride in Hanoi

I am really excited because I have finally found a way to post video on my blog! This means that there will be a few flashbacks to some of my previous trips, and I decided to start with one of the best.

This clip is from my trip to SE Asia during the summer of 2005. It was taken in the Old Quarter of Hanoi, Vietnam. I was riding on the back of a motorbike and holding the camera over the driver's head. This is the normal form of transportation in Vietnamese cities.

Counter-revolutionary

This post only tangentially relates to my travel adventures, but it is SO awesome that I had to post it.

My mom's best friend Kendra has spent the last two years living in Beijing, China. She has been teaching art at an international school there. My mother knows that Kendra shares my passion for travel and so she passed along m blog URL. Kendra of course followed the link and was quite startled to discover that access to my web site is restricted by the Chinese government.

As I am sure that many of you know, China places strict restrictions on what web sites can be viewed by computers from within the country. Apparently, for some reason, the Chinese government has deemed that my blog is counter-revolutionary!

I can not figure out why this would be the case, so if any of you have any thoughts, please post them in the comments section.

South America: By the Numbers

The following is an accounting of some of the facts from my journey. They are in no particular order and may be counting activities only completed by myself, only by Rebecca, or by both of us combined.

• 9: Plane flights
• 6: Intercity bus trips
  
• 11: Boat trips
• 7: Most caipirinhas consumed in a single evening
• 8: Nights spent in a hammock
• 55: Hammocks on the boat from Manaus to Tabatinga
• 575,400: Seconds spent on the boat from Manaus to Tabatinga
• 2: Cameras stolen
• 5: Immodium pills taken
• 4: Monkey species observed in the wild
  
• 1: Cups of juice spilled on laps on plane flights
• 8: Number of times Rebecca's hair was touched to see if it was real
• 3: Number of dominoes lost over the side of the boat
• 12: Days spent mourning the loss of the dominoes
• 6: Bikinis bought
• 5: Days spent on package tours
• 4: Days of package tours actually paid for
• 1: Bridges created on the fly just for us by chopping down a tree
  
• 2: Days on package tours where activities were disrupted by the rain
• 59: Pounds of laundry submitted for washing over the course of the trip
• 33: Days with cold showers or none at all
• 1: Baths in a river
• 8: Books read
• 3: Number of times I was asked if I wanted to buy marijuana
• 345: Minutes spent waiting on the banks of the Amazon River for a boat back to Leticia
  

Iquitos

Iquitos is a city of 500,000 people and there are NO roads to any other major city. EVERYTHING is brought to the city by plane from Lima or by boat all of the way from the Atlantic Ocean. This of course makes it a rather expensive city, relatively speaking of course. This has also resulted in the presence of a very interesting mix of vehicles on the city's streets. In my last post I mentioned the taxi drivers. They do not drive "normal" taxis. The insanely pilot oversized tricycles with 110 cc put-put motors on them. They are a myriad of bright colors and actually offer a cheap, efficient, and somewhat dangerous way to get around the city.

Our initial exploration of the Iquitos led us to The Yellow Rose of Texas. It is located just off of the Paza de Armas on Putumayo street (towards the river). The place is run by an ex-oil and gas engineer named Gerald Mayeaux and the place is overflowing with character. The bar stools are saddles and there is so much stuff on the walls and hanging from the ceiling that it is hard to take it all in. There are a wide variety of dead jungle animals, native artifacts, and thousands of pictures.

While the decoration is completely over the top, it is still not the greatest contributor to the place's character. That award goes to the larger than life personalities of the regular patrons. They can best be described as overweight, middle-aged, ex-patriots from the US, UK, and Oz who have taken up residence in Iquitos because they can live like kings. They all have an opinion about absolutely everything and are more than willing to discuss/argue any point you could possibly bring up.

One guy showed up the night we were there with a giant blue parrot. The guy promptly order two beers, one for himself and the other for the bird. The bird drank right out of the mug. By the end of the night both the guy and the bird were falling out/off of the chair. The bird would slide down the curved back rest of the chair and then have to pull itself back up to the top using its beak.

We also went out to Quistococha, Iquitos' zoo. This was a major stop on the tour for us because Quistococha is a partner zoo with the Perth Zoo where Rebecca works. One of her friends has spent a lot of time in Iquitos working at the zoo and we wanted to see everything that he had done. The zoo has spider monkeys, cougars, jaguars, black jaguars, tons of monkeys, and even Bruno's older bigger cousins.

We also went out to Belen, a section of Iquitos that played host to the movie Fitzcarraldo. About 10% of Belen is built on the shore and about 20% is built on stilts over the river and can be accessed by bridges and catwalks. The remaining 70% is comprised of floating buildings that extend out into the river. Everything that a normal city on land has can be found here. Schools, churches, stores, homes, etc...