Tag Archives: Tat Lo

Jungle Resort Noises

Posted on by james

Waterfall smashes
Birds call, dogs yelp, monkeys shriek,
Secadas deafen

March 7th, 2011
We stayed the first two nights in Tad Lo in an expensive resort (ok, it was only $18 but that’s considerably higher than our average). We stayed in a bungalow on stilts right near one of the waterfalls. However the noise from the waterfalls weren’t the only noises there. When we woke up we heard lots of yelping and yapping which we later found out was a monkey and several puppies locked up in a cage right next to each other. There were also the sounds of crickets – I saw one a few days later that looked like a praying mantis but with huge double wings which were disguised as a green leaf with veins and all. Or perhaps they weren’t crickets but cicadas, which since we were on tree level with them was absolutely deafening.

Swapping Sicknesses

Posted on by james

No trekking for me
Lumpy throat, sniff, sweat
Sleeping all day

March 6th, 2011
Since Hanoi, Lucie and I seem to have been taking turns getting slightly sick. Nothing serious, just minor colds, a slight disappearing ear ache, a few small food poisonings, and a nasty head cold. Just as it looked like I was kicking the last remnants of my head cold so we could both enjoy this sleepy village and go on treks and runs in the villages around, Lucie ended up getting it. She slept all day and composed this Haiku and is now feeling much better. Hopefully she can kick the cold faster than I have.

Tat Lo

Posted on by james

Naked kids, wet backs
Splashing, sliding, waterfalls
Joys of river youth

March 5th, 2011
A series of three waterfalls run through this sleepy village. It has a couple of resorts and seems like a great place to finish off our recoveries (Lucie seems to have captured my head cold last night). Incredibly hot during the day, the only way to make the heat bearable is to go jump into the nearby river. Neighborhood kids seem to go do it every day – the older ones doing backflips off ledges, the younger ones playing in smaller pools and sliding down a smooth section of rock.

Culinary Differences

Posted on by james

Oh my poor tastebuds
Danced in Vietnam, burned in Lao
Where is Highway 4?

We wrote this Haiku after eating a small bit of an incredibly spicy green papaya salad. We had specifically asked for medium spicy and we cringe to think of what normal spiciness would have been like. Highway 4 was an amazingly tasty joint, in the hip section of Hanoi. It is actually a chain and they now have a few restaurants in Hanoi and one opening in Saigon shortly. We are hoping that they go international and some Vietnamese expats open one in Palo Alto.