I've had a song in my head since Ko Tao. Since I'm in Vietnam, you'd think I'd be humming the Stone's Paint it Black, Nancy's These Boots Were Made For Walking, or at least the Mickey Mouse Club theme. Nope. Brooks & Dunn's My Maria. Can't say I mind.

Dalat's home to a freelance group of alterna-tour motorcycle guides called the Easy Riders. One of their founders, Hien - a former officer for the South Vietnamese and interpreter for the 101st Airborne, zipped me around the surrounding valleys all day. I was taken places that bus groups simply do not fit. It's because of his connections and the fact that the area near the Chinese border is the typical place to explore the fiercely independent hill tribal culture that I'm heading with Hien to explore the recently opened tribes between here and Nha Trang - my next destination. All that stands between me and the best beaches in Vietnam are a couple days, a tiny Honda bike with my personal navigator, and several thousand people that have seen very few white visitors.

The fact that there are so few foreigners in the area makes the few of us who are traveling here pretty familiar with each other. James Walters from Australia and I accidentally trail each other consistently - ever since Phnom Penh. He's possibly the only other anglo headed the same route with an Easy Rider tomorrow. If we end up in the same village tomorrow night, he'll be a help figuring out the echoes in the long house.

For an idea of the hilly, temperate central highlands setting, imagine a scenic, artsy Vietnamese town plopped in the area where the events of We Were Soldiers took place. Parisian, down to the half-scale Eiffel Tower. A day in the life of one of the few travelers in Dalat might very well go as follows.

Sleep in until nine because your personal tour bus arrived late due to the thunderstorm last night. Saunter downstairs to the complimentary breakfast of custom omlettes, fresh baguettes, pineapple, dragon fruit, and passion fruit juice. Make the acquiantence of two agreeable American vets - brothers - both of whom fought in the region. They now make regular pilgrimages to Vietnam for the cheap pot and women.

Set off on foot around the picturesque burg. As you approach the outskirts, help the giggling local kids with their English in exchange for basic tutelage in Vietnamese pronunciation. Three boisterous men might approach you and insist on your company in a barely-standing cafe/shanty. Lunch with them consists of chicken gizzards, gristle, and other sundry parts. Copious amounts of fish sauce (nuoc mam) and the unlabeled, rebottled local rice wine help get the chicken necks down yours. For the first half of the meal, you might have the luxury of a lovely interpreter - Vienh, the daughter of one of the men and a student at Dalat University, spent six months in Nevada. After she leaves for class, it's back to gestures, gawaffs, and limited Lonely Planet phrasebook communication. The proprietor's toddler will likely develop an unwavering interest in your camera. The men happily and steadfastly refuse your offers to chip in on the bill.

Witness the perplexing sight of a traditionally dressed peasant woman hacking apart circuit boards with a cleaver. Fail to glean why. The phrasebook definitely doesn't cover that situation.

Eschew restaurants - a total of forty cents will keep you stuffed with a whirlwind of flavors from street vendors for the whole day, as long as you don't mind questionable-to-lousy sanitation, mystery ingredients, and eight-inch plastic stools. The trade-offs are wide-eyed grinning company and the best food you've had outside of the very finest restaurants in the states.

Keep wandering away from town - you'll probably have a lot of day left, and that next hill and waterfall are oh so very photogenic. Oops. You've got a good sense of direction, and can point in the exact direction Dalat, but it's now pretty darn dark. The magnificent night sky panorama's beginning to show itself, but the moon's not full enough to light your way home. No worries - ten minutes of gesticulation and halting Vietnamese will convince the first gentleman you see to let you hop on the back of his motorcycle. No doubt he'll be visibly impressed with the generous US$1 you hand him upon delivery at your guesthouse.

Smile. You've got nearly two more weeks in Vietnam. Not ideal, you realize, but enough that your departure's not emminant.

"... so if you've a date in Ho Chi Minh City she'll be waiting in Saigon."

Ah, Vietnam. If I keep using words like lush, vibrant, and colorful I'll continue to sound like a third-rate travel brochure. It's hard to avoid them, though. I've only scraped the surface of this country (5 meters under the surface, actually - I'll get to that), and I'm enjoying it so much that my plan is to hitch a ride north this afternoon to see the rest of it. Kyle's scheduled a cooking class here on Monday, so I'll see him and whichever travel buddy he's with in Hanoi.

A couple notes on our last days in Cambodia: Phnom Penh loses most of its charm (though none of its character) during a rainstorm. I haven't seen city streets and intersections that far under water since the Alexandria Halloween Storm of '92.

Though I don't want to dwell on it, and you may have already heard, Cambodia has a bit of a dark recent history. Once I get back, you're welcome to borrow the $1.20 DVD of 'The Killing Fields' I picked up. The Choeng Ek Killing Fields are actually a quaint little pasture, if you ignore the mass graves that, in combination with ox cart handles, meant the end to 40,000 people during the Khmer Rouge years. One person survived. He'd been shot and buried in 1979, but was still breathing when the Vietnamese invaded and found the Fields several days later. The current government (though still rife with former Pol Pot's former comrades) erected a seven-tiered stupa that houses thousands of recovered skulls. The unearthing isn't yet finished. As dirt erodes around the graves, scraps from the victims' clothes still work their way to the surface. The eeriest moment for me was seeing two Khmer children playing amongst the pits - with gunshot-loud pea shooters. Choeng Ek was only the first of a one-two knockout, though. Most of its victims were fed there from Tuol Sleng Prison in Phnom Penh. "S-21", a former high school, is nearly exactly how the Vietnamese found it, restraints, torture implements, and all. Its stairways also happen to smell exactly like those at Schutz in Egypt.

Enough.

Though less gruesome, the Cu Chi tunnels northwest of Saigon are no less impressive. I usually eschew guides, but we went with one this time upon meeting the guy. An interpreter for the Americans for ten years of our occupation, this man keeps your interest. As did the site. Do not go on this tour if you don't like long dark underground crawls or proximity to live M60s. The snake wine we talked a vendor into sampling takes the edge off the claustrophobia. I'm not sure if it's the alcohol or properties relating to the pickled cobra in the bottle, but wow. Fire in the belly.

As with all state-run war memorials, there's a distinct slant to the War Remnants Museum. The term "Imperialist American aggression" kept popping up. They're right. We should not have ever been here. My American Traveler International Apology Shirt is serving double-duty. It seems like a weak gesture when you're confronted with fetuses deformed by Agent Orange. The least disturbing one had two heads. I was impressed by the exhibit rationally in addition to the emotional blow. Though previously advertised as the "American War Crimes Museum", it showed atrocities committed by both sides, and the horrible effects of war on a marvelous country. No mention of the Viet Cong tendency to strap grenades to little girls and point them towards US troops, though.

Again, enough. Most things here are overwhelmingly positive. Budding linguists try their English on you at any given opportunity. Last night Kyle, Josh (from San Fransisco - the first American backpacker we've met) and I found a local bar and, armed with curiosity and a desire to try something dangerously exotic, pointed at random drinks on the menu. Mine ended up being sweetened milk. The conversation was worth it, though. Two men (who swore they had different names but for the life of me I could only tell the slightest difference in inflection) learned all about the three of us, gave us general travel tips, and told us about their occupations - technology manager and medical student. It took a full hour of broken English and Vietnamese, but I finally figured out the med student's favorite movie - "007".

The conversation with the cart vendor from which I got breakfast this morning was a close second. It was hampered only by my preoccupation with the fact that I had no idea what I was eating. It was good, though. If you're in the area, he hangs out in the alley between Da Tham and Duong Tran Hung Dao. Ask for a well-done one.

For a socialist country, there's sure a laissez faire atmosphere. Communism's toned things down a bit though - the vendors aren't as unrelenting as those in parts of Cambodia. I immediately warmed up to the people here when Thoc, a bartender at Allez Boo in the backpacker ghetto, immediately recognized me as one of his professional brethren. Kyle scoffed as I explained the double charcoal filtration on Gentleman Jack to him, but I think I got the gist across nicely, thank you.

Confession: I killed a duck with an AK-47 today. Rationalization: It'll be eaten. Proclamation: Head shot on the fowl from forty yards.

I'll try most food (last night: frogs), but it'll take further coersion for me to crunch down on one of the five-inch deep-fried spiders sold by cute old ladies on the streets.

I love Cambodia. It's like a big, dangerous playground. It's easy to stay intact, though. Don't combine the $4.50 fifths of Stoli with the landmines/cobras and you're golden.

Additional note:

Just a prominent pointer to Zhubin's journal. He sent some folks my way in his September 7 post, and he's a fine man aside from his affinity for the Vols. If there's anything that's going to haunt him during his presidential campaign, that will be it.

Everything here costs about as much as the sales tax for the same thing/service would in Tennessee. Twelve hour overland trip: $2.50. Haircut $1.75. Hour-long traditional Thai massage: $7.50. (The little guy at the world-famous Wat Po school that was working me sure understood the practical applications of leverage.) Here in Cambodia you pay in your prefered combination of American, Thai and local currency. Last night's delectably extensive dinner cost a collectively tiny wad of US$1, 100 baht, and 1000 riel.

The guesthouses and bars in backpacker-heavy areas usually have posted schedules of their pirated movie line-up. Collateral Damage, which I saw the night before leaving Bangkok, shed light on a couple things for me.

• It's no wonder nearly everyone on the planet has a strong opinion (one way or the other) about Americans. The cliches we pump out by way of Hollywood must make us seem pretty identical and iconic, for good or bad.
  
• One of these cliches is that we don't get along with foreigners. In fact, there tend to be gun battles whenever one of us visits anywhere full of them.
  
• California, please don't make Arnold a governor. Maybe you have. I haven't been following U.S. news. If it's not too late, watch this movie before you head to the polls and do something rash.

There are no foreigners to fear here. Cambodia is lush, pristine, and easily one of the nicest places I've ever spent time. The welcoming smiles aren't only on the gates to Angkor Thom.

The trip here and border crossing involved a calander day, bus, foot travel, cyclo-thing, minibus, and a three hour repair delay for a bridge that had collapsed under a truck shortly before we arrived at the ensuing jam. The road on the Cambodian side was easily the most three-dimensional I've felt. And feel it I did - my skeleton was directly locked to the suspension - my femurs somehow wedged into a minibus seat with legroom exactly one-half their length.

Sunrise over Angkor Wat is a singular visual experience the sublimity of which can only be diminished by a properly placed Japanese tourist. While I stood in wonder at the sight, she somehow worked her way into my previously unblemished field of view. My mind had been reeling from the beauty, but the sight of the sun peeking over the architectural marvel gave her a different goal: apply sunscreen. Even I'm not that linear.

Angkor justifies this trip for me. If, like most Americans (my old self included), your idea of Cambodia is: "What? Where? Doesn't everyone die there?", the context is as follows. Angkor is the center of the once vast Khmer empire. It's now in ruins - hundreds of square kilometers smattered with the bestest temples ever. The treat, aside from the water buffalo wandering the occasional interstitial rice paddy, is the melding of nature and architecture. The temples and monastaries are all in different states of disrepair. Each of the dozens I've clamoured over/through have a unique feel, but most involve trees growing out of roofs and other such marvelous nonsense. Ta Phrom, in particular, is a glorious mess. I took 125 pictures today, and it's mainly to blame. The roaming monkeys and elephants did their parts too, though.

Navigation has been of the bicyclic variety. The first day here, my bike's three-gear shifter exploded and put an end to the peddling, and in fact to the rolling of the rear tire. We were about twelve clicks from our guest house in Siam Reap, but no worries. I simply hopped onto the butt end of one of the ubiquitous motorcycle taxis manned by Khmers. Along with the solid steel bicycle. No worries, Mom. I just carried it to adjust its weight with the leaning. The ironic moment happened when the youngest child of a family of four directed the attention of mom, dad and big sis to the unique sight of a white man carrying his bicycle on the back of a 100cc motorcycle taxi. They were all on an equally tiny motorcycle that my driver and I were passing.

The pirated music vendors that line the streets of backpacker hangouts seem to have an affinity for John Mayer. It's odd hearing his stuff here in Thailand when a couple years ago I was being introduced to him at the Vanderbilt Pub with a handful of other students.

I'm back in Bangkok, after another day of traveling in various rolling forms of transit. I'm now armed with an Open Water Diver certification, and I'm not afraid to use it - at least in places less expensive than the Great Barrier Reef. Bali and Fiji, in particular. It would have taken just another day and a half to get my Advanced cert (at one of the cheapest places in the world), but Angkor awaits. We're heading into Cambodia tomorrow, minibus schedules willing. Vietnam and Laos are rumoured to follow.

A moderate-to-annoying head cold made for a close call when doing the four open water dives that comprised our course. Ear equalization and all. Just took it slow and made it down to our max of 18 meters under. Varying degrees of visibility and surface roughness, but the highlights were still there - bugging polyps and swimming through a school of barracuda in particular. Weightlessness has something to be said for it too. No need to go to astronaut training now - I've checked that off my list. Back to the sniffles and coughing that've been my mantra for a couple days - chocolate coconut banana pancakes from cart vendors make for a brilliant adopted comfort food.

We said goodbye to our first extended travel buddy this morning - Roiy's an Israeli of the most laid-back sort. He made for a very chill roommate. It was especially thoughtful of him to attract all of the mosquitoes in the room. He's still a punk, though, because he could stay for the advanced course on Ko Tao and Kyle and I didn't have the time.

Travel tip of the day: never delay in photographing a brilliant sunset, even if it's to adjust camera settings. They tend to disappear.

Combine Hawaiian island breeze, Thai hospitality/culture, and beautiful Oregon weather and you have my first impressions of Ko Tao (Turtle Island). I hear that the overcast skies will clear up, but I'll deal with that when it happens. The $7.50 it cost for the overnight double-decker sleeper bus and early morning speedboat was worth it, especially when you consider that they showed Brotherhood of the Wolf on the beach in Champong as we were waiting for the boat. I didn't think I'd run into aquatic life before strapping a tank to my back, but the flying fish that joined us in the boat proved me wrong. Despite the fact that I'm still surrounded by farang, it's much more laid back here. No shoes in this internet cafe. I just enjoyed a shiitake mushroom over glass noodle lunch with ginger tea at one of the many open-air bungalow cafes that line Sai Ree beach, where our newly contracted scuba course and lodging takes place. Orientation tonight, and dives over the next three days. There are worse ways to waste time while waiting for visas to clear in Bangkok.

Ha! No longer am I behind the times compared to you bloody mainland Americans. Say hello to this side of the international date line.

The last night on O'ahu was a short one, but continued my streak of not sleeping inside in Hawaii. The layover in Tokyo was an easy four hours - the people watching alone is worth the bucket-shop ticket price to this side of the Pacific. The Pocky sticks and melon sodas weren't unknown to me, but it was interesting to witness the Japanese societal automation choices. They'll mechanize the simple closing of a store shutter, but the advertising outside of duty-free shops is all done by live people - usually girls in uniforms. I guess wasting time on strange social interaction is better than with menial chores.

It's becoming more and more apparent that we didn't schedule enough time for Southeast Asia. Five weeks isn't enough - people doing the same routes we've been planning take months. Oh well. Guess I'll have to come back. As we walked outside of the (preposterously lax) customs checkpoint at the airport, we saw many dozens of motorcycles lined up. Admittedly, the 125cc par here means that my engine is equivalent to over six of theirs, but it's still good to see so many people in the club around here. The bus ride from the airport offered the first interaction with travelers - Gareth and Carl are kiwis and Tim, the only man in Bangkok with a snowboard, is from London. Most of us headed two blocks north of Khaosan Road to find a relatively quiet guesthouse. KSR is the shoestringer haven. A melting pot of adventurers and those who have something to sell to us. Usually that ends up being beer - 60 baht (US$1.50) gets you 62 ounces of 12-22 proof locally brewed Beer Chang. After settling in at "My House Guest House", we wandered back to see the late night scene at KSR. I wandered back shortly after being grabbed by a transvestite (a.k.a. Code Pat).

The first order of business the next morning (four hours of sleep for me & none for Kyle), was to wander a mile south to the Grand Palace and Wat Phra Kaew, home of the Emerald Buddha. Spire after spire after magnificent temple. We took a free tour after wandering around, where we met and grilled two British travelers about the Laos/Cambodia/Vietnam circuit. I took particular photographic interest in the devilishly curved spike ornamentation on the roofs of the palace buildings and temples. One such image was the last picture I'll ever take with my beloved Canon S230. Due to grit and a manufacturing defect, I received the death-kiss of a code E18, which turns out to be a lens retraction mechanism failure. I spent the rest of the afternoon tracking down tiny tools. Managed to hand our passports in for visas in the process, though. The first place that I bugged for a tiny philips head was a watch repair shop. He asked me to leave as it became apparent he thought I was trying to scam him out of his entire toolset. Better luck at an eyeglass shop. Got it back to the hostel and fully disassembled the little bastard, to no avail. Needed to do something else, and Kyle was fully incapacitated, so I ended up having dinner and drinks with some English and South African guys, which led us to infamous Patpong Road. The street is filled with fake name brand products and the gogo bars themselves are filled with fake women. European-inspired levels of beer intake led to a pretty solid crash that night.

The next morning meant a trip to Pantip Palace, an electronics expo that puts Fry's to shame. Its six floors, like Patpong, are more cramped and intense than its stateside counterparts. I'm now the proud but untimely owner of a Canon IXUS 400 - the international branding of the domestic Powershot S400. The four megapixels allowed me to capture, in detail, a newspaper page directing Bangkok Post readers to vacation in Oregon. I had been tempted to simply rely on Kyle's camera until I got to Australia (and cheaper electronics), but Maria's right - this trip is too visual to skimp in that department. I wouldn't have gone with a similar Canon model after the trouble, but I already have all of the accessories and I've mentally justified the purchse by thinking of the purchase as a preposteroously expensive extra battery.

The guest house reminds me of a Kissam freshman hall. Grungy, doors open, guys congregating. I met Steve yesterday, a Brit with more energy, political acumen, and dry humor than any of the others who stayed up until 2am last night to catch the UK v. Lichtenstein match. Thanks to Steve's instruction, a napkin holder, and four empty Beer Changs, I now have a pretty solid understanding of onsides/offsides rulings.

We board a bus in an hour and a half for Ko Tao, a little scuba diving mecca off the eastern Malay Peninsula coast. Arriving on the island after a night en route. We've missed the full moon party on one of its neighbors, but this should be even better.

Egypt comes to mind here more than it has since I left the mideast. The sundry smells, the vendors, the language barrier - it feels like home. This place is alive. Khaosan is not truly Thailand, but that's where we're going now, hopefully.

Temporary note: I've added a couple Hawaii shots to the August 29 post below, if you're interested. Compared to the hikes we've done in the past few days, the pillbox trek is a bit on the dry side. We're also not always as serious as our posted visages indicate. Unfortunately, images will likely be few and far between for the duration of the trip, so if my thousands of words aren't worth the corollary number of pictures, well, at least you've been warned.

And if anyone knows of an online script / small freeware app I can use to resize jpegs from ginormous to 400 x Y', let me know. I haven't found one.

Hehe. Gecko.

Kyle and I did this island in the right order. We left the local-dominated beaches behind the other day and braved Waikiki and the neverending flock of tourists. Though I have the superiority complex associated with feeling closer to being local than a Yokohama native in for a three-day weekend, I have to admit that the beach at Waikiki was perfect for learning how to surf. We ended up with bargain-basement, assembly-line style instructors, and our only regret is that we didn't just rent boards and do it on our own. Up on the first try, no sweat. I credit the boogie-boarding we've been doing.

Walking through the range that seperates the east and west of southern O'ahu is akin to a vertical saunter through five distinct strata of forest, each with its own floral wonders - and the topmost with glimpses of ocean on either side of this cute green-encrusted rock. Two of the lookouts we've visited share morbid histories. The more precarious of the two was the site where 400 defenders either died in battle or leaped off the edge during Kamehameha's unification of the islands in 1795. The other was the site that Bobbee found a body in March, fresh from the effects of a self-inflicted shotgun wound to the head. If you're going to kill yourself, you can't pick a prettier spot than Tantalus.

From Here to Eternity needs to be added to my must-see movie list. Bobbee took me to the beach upon which a famous scene from the movie was filmed, and if the rest of the flick's anywhere near the quality of those visuals, it's a bloody masterpiece.

Our illustrious hosts, Bobbee and Jim, left for Denver last night, so we're in charge of their scenic zoo/house. The only challanges are that the three parrots refuse to leave the tree, and I'm not sure how to get the blind dog to find the water bowl in front of her. I guess we didn't get enough animal exposure today, so we went to the north shore, and the turtles. These aren't your run-of-the-mill sit-around-the-terrarium-and-be-boring turtles, oh no. They were bigger than I am, playful, and about my speed in the water.

This log is, in effect, a highlights reel from the bound journal I'm keeping. As the pages fill up, the value I place on that item is quickly overtaking that of any of the camera gear, all digital and full of pixels as it is. The risk to it all is about to increase. Tomorrow we're off to Thailand, which I expect to meet the standard this domestic archipelago has set. Do you hear me, Thailand? You'd better be stunning.

Kyle claims the first injury of the trip - a bloodied hand due to a grab at bamboo, but I think my ankle sprain was the first to actually impact our activities. I acquired it while scampering around rocks at Kaena Point - the westernmost point of Oahu. It's browner up there than on this side, but their breakfast burritos can't be beat. Despite my hobbling, we headed to a dessert fondue party, where Kyle befriended a parrot, croc hunter style. The owner of the house likes water. A lot. If the moat and grotto-like swimming pool don't clue you in, there's always the industrial vat of a saltwater aquarium built into the living room.

My incapacitation gave us a chance to catch up on reading, but not at the expense of some glorious boogie boarding. Just like old times in the Med.

Once my mobility returned, we headed over to view the side effects of the hurricane on Mokapu'u point. Kyle almost got himself swept away, but at least I got a good picture of his drenching. At one point on the climb back, I set down my pack and my rain shell, took a picture, then picked up my pack and headed down to the car. The sprint back to that spot taught me a lesson - don't lose stuff. Fortunately the jacket was still there, so lesson averted.

The biggest problem in my life right now is whether to send some excess clothing back home with Bobbee and Jim. I really should ditch my cotton t-shirt in favor of the quick-drying synthetics, but it happens to be my American International Traveler Apology Shirt. It proclaims this in six languages, along with the phrase I'm sorry my president is an idiot. I did not vote for him. I think it'll stay as a life saving measure. I didn't follow my doctor's prescription of a Canadian flag for my backpack, so the apology shirt might work in a pinch.

Today was the 58th anniversary of the Japanese surrender on board the USS Missouri. As we saw this afternoon, it's still a fine looking vessel.