Life in SE Asia

Still on the honeymoon. Still awesome. Still have 2 weeks left. Quick highlights so far:

1. When a little girl in Cambodia threatened me with a live tarantula... In Cambodia the kids beg a ton, which is really sad, and a lot of them have these little bags of dirty, sick-looking fruit, and they try to sell it to you. So our second day in Cambodia, we were on a bus on our way to Angkor Wat, and the bus stopped at a makeshift rest stop, and as soon as we got off the bus we were swarmed by about 20 kids and we said "no thanks, we just need to go to the bathroom" to their fruit and they said "ok maybe you come back and buy from me" "ok maybe you buy from me" "from me" etc., and we were like, "maybe, maybe, ok, maybe" just to be nice. So then we come back and this little girl was like here here you said you'd buy from me! And 20 other kids were saying the same thing. So we said "oh, no we're ok, we said maybe, we didn't say we'd buy from you, we aren't hungry." And this little girl was PISSED. So then I look to my left and I see these ladies with this HUGE pile of FRIED tarantulas, and I was so startled I was like, HOLY and kind of took a few steps backward. So then the pissed little girl said "they have live ones too" and then disappears and then I turn around and there is a bucket in my face, like the size of a big industrial paint bucket, FILLED with the biggest tarantulas I've ever seen, just crawling all over the place. And again I was crazy startled and said an even louder HOLY CRAP (or maybe something worse, I don't remember) and took like 8 steps backward, and as I was distracted by my fear she grabbed a tarantula and started fake throwing it at my face! And saying "you didn't buy from me." Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Don't worry, we felt really bad for all the little kids at the rest stop and bought their fruit and gave them tiny denominations of money, even to the crazy little girl. Actually, she probably deserved the most because she had so much fire in her.

2. When we hiked 7 hours to a remote mountain village in northern Laos... We spent the night in one of the Khmu tribal villager's huts, and our guide mentioned that the people set traps for rats and then eat them (there are chickens and pigs all over the village, but our guide said the people don't eat those animals--they sell them and that is the only way they make money--so to eat protein, they hunt, and catch rats) (don't worry, as proof, there was a dead rat hanging from the ceiling, drying directly over where our guide was cooking our dinner. Mmmmmm). So after first feeling horrible that these people had to eat rats to live, I then started doing the math in my head, and realized, hmmm, if they catch rats in their huts, that means there are rats, in these huts. At the point of this realization, I wildly turned to Brandon, and in a slightly terrified voice said, "so, if they are catching rats where we are sleeping..." So Brandon laughs at me and says, "rats aren't going to bite us while we sleep," and he turns to our guide, and asks, jokingly, "visitors don't ever gets bit by rats here, right? my wife is worried." And the guide responds, "not usually, but yes sometimes. It has happened But I mean very very rarely..."

3. When I woke up the whole Khmu village in the middle of the night... In the same mountain village I had to use the "ladies room" like crazy at 3 am, so I stumbled through the dark, stepping over the family sleeping 6 inches below us on sleeping bags, I find the door, walk outside, hoping a Khmu tribal person doesn't shoot me in the head as I stand by the side of the road, I go back in as quietly as possible, but, somehow, in the process, I wake up the roosters in our hut, who apparently thought it was daytime and started crowing, waking up every other rooster and some pigs, in the village, and thereby waking up every single person in the village. Ha ha ha ha. yeah, I felt pretty bad.

4. When we finally arrived at the beach (2 days ago) and started to feel like we're on a more normal honeymoon.... We are in vietnam and the beaches are incredible! The resorts are p-o-s-h but very affordable, because it's the low season and because we're in the middle of Vietnam. The town is dead, about 20 people on a 2 mile stretch of beach. We have the ocean to ourselves! It is the rainy season, but so far, it has rained once, for 5 minutes, other than that, it's been blue blue skies! We'll be island-hopping around Vietnam and Cambodia for the next bit, scuba diving, hopefully learning how to kite-surf, getting crazy cheap but excellent massages, and eating delicious sea food straight from the ocean. No complaints!

Sorry no pictures... it is a pain to upload here.

Part of me never wants to come home!