backofhouseca

I’d like to start this blog by warning the readers that it will be a relatively general overview of our Journey in Vietnam. Its not that Vietnam is not beautiful or that we didn’t have many great experiences. To be honest its just that nothing that exciting happened. I think after traveling for 6 months  in south east asia you become a little less excited about each and every destination. And although some parts of Vietnam blew me away there were others i could have done without! My deepest and most sincere apologies to Vietnam because i feel i dent give you a fair chance, i was just so tired and broke!

Vietnam is the land of Banh Mi , rice noodles, pho noodle soup, sweet Buun and all kinds of delicious stuff!! Eating in vietnam can be as tasty as it is tricky at times. There have been more than a few times where we just pick the busiest looking food stall and order without ever knowing what were about to eat! In vietnam a local bar, could serve swan, geese, frog, and dog and nobody bats an eye. In fact dog is considered a delicacy and is very pricey. So for any tourist afraid of getting dog instead of beef, rest your weary head there not going to waste good quality dog on you.

We started our journey in Ho Chi Min city. That place is crazy, motorbikes run the world and walking across the streets takes as much gusto as jumping out a plane! The city is hustling and bustling at all hours of the day. You can eat drink and do whatever, whenever you want. The most cultural experience we had was going to the war museum in Saigon. What a f–ked up place excuse my french. This is anti war and anti American propaganda to the max. The photos and stories of the vietnamese victims were so heart wrenching and painful to see. They had a whole room dedicated to to photos about the effects of “project orange”  had on the people of vietnam. The effects of the chemical warfare were the most devastating photos i had ever seen. After you leave the museum you still have a lingering feeling of pain, disgust and nausea. It really makes you think about how cruel war can be and so many innocent lives are ruined forever. It made me appreciate my peace loving and neutral nation of Canada! (besides our brutal attacks on our native population of coarse.)

A few days later we left Ho ChI MIN, we went to see Muine  and nice beach town with amazing sand dunes. We woke up at six am to see the sun rise on the red dunes. It was a beautiful experience. Other then that Muine was pretty boring, the sun was shinning but we were done with tanning and all that Jazz I mean 3 weeks in Bali will do that. We left and went we went to Dalat a very cool mountain town, where it rained and was cold and miserable for three days.It was the best, we stayed in bed all day without a sliver of guilt. Even though the weather wasn’t great (by normal people standards) we did eat the most delicious grilled pork with rice known to man kind. Sounds simple i know but thats what Vietnamese food is all about, delicious fresh and simple food. Everything is a mix of sweet sour, salty and spicy, covered with fresh herbs and pickled vegetables.The pork came  with pickled eggplant and kimchi and it was to die for.Im still craving that dish.

After Delat there was Nahtrang, a very cool up and coming city on the coast with a beautiful boardwalk and white sandy beaches. We decided to go to the vietnamese version of Disney land. It was slightly more ghetto and little more dangerous but it was so much fun!!!!! There was nobody there and we hit the water park full swing! This would never happen in north America where you wouldn’t have to wait in line for a ride let alone be able to do the same ride over and over and over again without waiting. So much fun and a little scary!!!!!!

Then after Nahtrang there was Hoi An. Hoi An is a city dedicated to the sole purpose of having clothes and shoes made and thats exactly what we did. We spent five days making jackets,sweaters and a bridesmaid dress for me. Alex went crazy and i don’t think these two ladies ever saw a man who was so interested in fashion and had so many ideas and was so specific about the details. Lets just say in the end it was not worth the stress of making my own dress. Cheap is Cheap and that what you get. If i had never made any clothes there id be fine. A word of advice to anyone going there..

1- don’t make anything that requires an eye for detail , like suits or jackets. They look cheap and that the bottom line, when you pay 30 bucks for a suit which is made in less than three hours , don’t except Hugo Boss or Moores.

2- don’t have any fancy dresses made for special occasion that actually matter! My experiences making my brides maid dress was more painful then it was enjoyable, they don’t understand the concept of “fit” or “details”

3- still to do fun easy stuff, t-shirts, sundresses, hoodies and all that stuff, don’t expect to much or take it too seriously and maybe you’ll be less disappointed then i was.

Thankfully for alex his stuff came out great, I was not as lucky and a basically left with some debt and headache

After Nahtrang there was Hanoi and Sapa. Sapa was beautiful and although we spent most of the five days fighting and sick in bed I did have one glorious day of trekking through the rice paddies and it was amazing! Beautiful fresh air and natural beauty nothing can beat that. Hanoi on the other hand is loud, dirty and filled with rude people. We spent way to much time there and i don’t even want to write about it cause that will give it some importance. Hanoi sucked the life out of us. Its like time stood still and we were just waiting, waiting for something! and we found it in SHANGHAI

GILI Island

After a week or so of pure luxury,4 star hotels, room service and drinks by the pool, our time had come to give up our lavish lifestyle and return to backpacking and ten dollar a night hotel rooms! As we said good bye to my mother and sister after a rather interesting vacation filled with love, laughter and lots of fighting (as all good family vacation are made of) , we set back off on our travels!

We were off to the Gili islands, a little hideaway in Indonesian filled with good looking people, reggae music and magic mushrooms! This island is set back in time, no motorized vehicles and no motor bikes and you can only  get anywhere by horse and buggy. Charming yes but slightly unsettling when you are stumbling home and pony whizzes by you, controlled only by a young indonesian boy, chain smoking and head to toe in surfer gear! Doesn’t exactly scream safety

The Gill’s are beautiful, theres nothing to do but sunbath, eat and drink  and I’m not exaggerating at all. Well theres a little diving and surfing as well!  So Alex and i found ourselves a nice little bungalow on the quiet end of town and set out to relax (cause we haven’t done enough of that!)

Two days in the GiIli’s and you’ve seen it all! The best part of the island is this reggae bar that has the spirit of Bob Marley oozing from its cracked wooden beams. Its all about good music and good company.

Alex and I decided to indulge in the local style of living. Lets just say it was a magical night!!We left the Gilis a little broke and lot enlightened! lol

Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia)

We didn’t spend much time in malaysia, three days and two nights to be exact. We were in Kuala Lumpur which is a beautiful city , it has all the charms of any great american city like New York but with some asian flare like amazing street food and stylish ouster in platform converse and fake eyelashes! We stayed in a little guest house in china town. Nothing fancy but it happened to be across the street from the best noodle stall we have yet discovered.

Picture this, egg noodles, freshly made covered in an “asian bolognese” , some kind of ground pork and beef cooked with soya sauce and other delicious secret sauces and spices. Then you get a small bow of the most delicious home made broth with four or five “beef balls” (you know the kind you get in pho, the are kind of chewy  but very yummy). So eat the noodles and the soup together but separately and its a flavor explosion. Unfortunately we didn’t take a picture of this marvelous dish, but the memory of it will last forever!!!!! yummmmmmmy

Other then eating we went to see the ” Petronas twin towers”, and they were just as amazing in person as they are in “Entrapment” starring Catherine Zeta jones and Sean Connery. We goofed around and took some great pics.

The next day we left malaysia for vietnam!!!!! Good morning Vietnam!!!!!

To all our loyal fans if your out there I would like to thoroughly apolagize  for the absolute lack of any blogging coming from Alex and I. First off i’d like to blame the horrible chinese internet system! You’d think in a country like China where there fast and on the cutting edge of almost everything, the internet would allow you to do more then check out gossip websites! Unfortunately that was not the case, and between there government restriction and the turtle paced internet there was no way we were able to log on to our site and therefore we could not blog! We are very far behind in fact we are so far behind that we will actually be home in Montreal in 6 days! Its crazy, I know! I’m going to do my best to fill you in on the rest of indonesia, malaysia and vietnam and then of coarse our grand finally in China and then Van city! I hope you’ll forgive me, I promise to get better and be more reliable and this time i  mean it ( i know i sounds like a cheating boyfriend or girlfriend but the difference is Im actually not lying(try to believe me) and I actually feel bad about what I’ve done to you! I’ve deprived you of our adventure and scandal, and living vicariously through us, but don’t worry were back with a vengence!

Here are a few pics from the end of our awesome family vaca!

xoxoxo

took a taxi towards our next destination on our mid family vacation. We made a stop after an hour of driving to this cute little restaurant on the beach. On our way in i stay for behind, I light a cigarette quietly so raegans mom wouldn’t see. I took in as much nicotine as I could in the 2 mins I had to get to the table, witch wasn’t the best Idea. I tend to forget that once you smoke the smell stays with you for a while. So this hole paragraph is pointless.

You can see the excitement on our face, excluding alex s. and marilyn, they looked like they walked into a rat infested hole of a restaurant where the chef is a huge cockroach with a smile. It was there first local restaurant experience . Once the food got to the table all of there fears were gone with the ocean breeze.

The food was amazing, 21 grilled jumbo shrimp covered in chilly and garlic , 3 hole fish some greens, rice and the most amazing assortments of indonesian BBQ sauces known to westerners. For the next 10 minutes (yes it only took ten minutes to finish) all you heard was chewing, slurping and moaning, ohh and we took a few breaks to gulp down the strongest martinis on the block. Once done I smelled like an alcoholic prawn who just spent an hour in the sauna. I was disgusting and so happy. I couldnt care less about the rest of them at the moment, so I got nothing else to say on the subject. Actually I have one thing to say, ALEX STEINBERG IS A NONE SHARING FOOD THEIF!!!!! thats all

finally we arrive to the hotel looking like drunk vagabonds, but thats no excuse for how terribly treated we were during our check in. there were no smiles, but there was a sweet refreshing beverage and frozen towelettes. the intercuntanental “oops” I meant the intercontinental. Okay yes the first day was a bit of a drag but the rest of the time the staff were very kind and respectful. The rooms are amazing, the beds are huge.

The problem with having such nice rooms like in ubud and this one , when your backpacking around is that you never want to leave because you know that all to often a good thing never stays that way for to long. Traveling around has showed me the importance of a pool, the beach is perfection but the pool is just so convenient .

The itinerary was simple. Wake up before 10 am for the free breakfast, pool time till lunch which was around 2pm, then more pool time There really wasnt much to do around the bay. So we would venture further into bali . but to be honest in the time that we had ,other then the four handed massage I got (which felt like I was cheating and got away with it) booyah!!!and the massive sculptures surrounding the city there really isnt much to see. It looks like any miami beach out there. But one night alex needed to get away from all the shopping her sister and mom were doing (go figure…) and I was given the duty to take her out for a drink. Alex and I found a bar at the end of the beach, with two very kind barmaids and a swedish couple who looked like they were scoping out for some good old fashion swinging. After we had our first drink, alex came up with the genius plan to to play a joke on the barmaids. So we came up with our porn names.

What you do: you take your first pets name and the first street you lived on. My name was Lacky Cavendish and hers was Roxy Dawson. With the new names we had to have new origins, with all of this, alex decided to tell the barmaid a little lie, the barmaid did not believe her, but wanted to make sure for herself so she tried took hook me up with a bali boy, thats when I had to leave but not before I smacked alex as a gay man….

Sadly I did not end up in a better place. We ate at the worst restaurant I have ever been to, horrible service and raw seafood( not the good kind) its like getting crabs from an old ugly prostitute that doesn’t believe in deodorant ). But thank g…d for the great company ……. GREAT COMPANY!

They get it.

okay so here it goes…

theres this town called Ubud and its run by monkeys, balinese smiles and tourist. the town is beautiful, the streets are lined up with shops owned by foreigners and tourist filled restaurants that can stand next the multimillion $ establishements  in most western city’s. obviously  like every town there are hidden gems. warung baby  guling is the name of this suckling pig on a stick restaurant . okay so now i explained a little bit of the city and now i will tell you the story.

waking up at 10 am while marlin and alex have been up since 5 am. having tea and coffee  watching the tele or playing with marilyn’s famous iPad witch by the way never left her side, can get boring after a few hours. so we ventured into town as fast as possible, because one temperamental steinberg is one thing but 3 are a hole other story. after a little walk or i would rather say stoping at every freaking shop on the block.  i found myself waiting outside  this bikini store for two hours.for most men reading this I’m sure the idea of 3 beautiful women trying on many bikini’s is great but its NOT! when its your girls mom and sister…

the next day raegan and marilyn went on a trek while alex and i got a message, a few hours later   we decided to not wait  and went ahead to pick up lunch . we got to baby guling , there was a line up of about 20 people. became friends with the owner who’s this old lady wearing a versace shirt, white gucci pants and cheap old shower flip flops. once we got the food, we  rushed back to the hotel. marilyn had the biggest smile on her face, i asked “whats up with you madame” and she answered ” i bought so much poop coffee for 100$ yayyyyy!!! ” and i said…..well theres not much i could have said. after we ate the very spicy meal, raegan and i  went to bed to relax….. F.Y.I….. when ever you eat very spicy food  wash your mouth.  as i started to kiss raegan the heat of the chillies transferred onto her and just between you and me our lips never touched…;)

a good memory…

to be nice , the poop coffee that she bought is quite  famous and to some people its the best coffee  in the world.the story behind the poop, caca or shit. theres this bird that eats the best beans it finds and poops them out .  there are people that pick out the digested bean from the excrements or feces, to make this cafe…..that was for marilyn!

indonesia, as usual i can say its a beautiful country with beautiful people who smoke a lot of cigarettes (thank g…d i don’t have to see a rotting foot, a dead fetus every time i open my pack for a smoke.) i will have to say that eat love pray is just another way the western world has put their hands  in the cookie jar. Obviously it has given Indonesia plenty of money but why is it that money usually maybe always gives you something good but takes away something great.

As an example, it is harder to get an appointment  with a village healer who lives in a hut made out of straw then it was to eat at the famous EL BULI.       I’m really not exaggerating.

So we found ourselves waiting for raegan’s mom  and sister at the airport in bali after a long flight from Cambodia. Finally I look back at Raegan looking anxiously at the arrival gate, when out of nowhere with the speed  of a 500 horsepower muscle car she jumps into her mothers and sisters arms with the biggest smile that you’ve ever seen.An hour and a half later we got to the hotel. As walked through our room door and I saw how stunning it was I immediately  walked out saying that it was too much, after all the whole in the wall dip shit places we had been staying in, I just couldn’t adjust to the luxury (but that didn’t last long).

After visiting India, Loas, Cambodia,  the biggest culture shock  I experienced was this amazing room in this amazing hotel. The bed, the pillow, the tub and shower, the never ending bucket of ice and last but not least the small indonesian child the they keep in the closet who only comes out for our amusement. KIDDING!!!(there is no never ending bucket of ice).

It was late and after a long shower, some tv, I entered the bed (which was covered in rose petals placed in a heart shape) I felt like a baby in my mothers arms.

i was going to say something dirtier or just plane old nasty, so that you would really understand how comfortable i was.

but once again RAEGAN  said “if you write that i won’t …….” so as a man i went ahead and played the good dog.

the bed of all beds in asia