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My Heart In the Dirty Hands of Essaouira Hospital
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essaouira, morocco, morrocco, essouira, hospital, emergency, emergency room, sidi mohamed ben abdellah, provincial hospital, essaouira hospital, doctor, ambulance, arrhytmia, travel, traveler, accident, disease, travelling, traveling, heart condition, travel emergency Tamara Hansen Comment
My Heart In the Dirty Hands of Essaouira Hospital
essaouira, morocco, morrocco, essouira, hospital, emergency, emergency room, sidi mohamed ben abdellah, provincial hospital, essaouira hospital, doctor, ambulance, arrhytmia, travel, traveler, accident, disease, travelling, traveling, heart condition, travel emergency Tamara Hansen Comment
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essaouira, morocco, morrocco, essouira, hospital, emergency, emergency room, sidi mohamed ben abdellah, provincial hospital, essaouira hospital, doctor, ambulance, arrhytmia, travel, traveler, accident, disease, travelling, traveling, heart condition, travel emergency Tamara Hansen Comment
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OUR JOURNAL IN PICTURES:

Click any picture to see location, day and description

To see our full "journal" from day one click here...

Day 597: Siem Reap, Cambodia Had one of the most surreal experiences of my life today. I've been a long time follower of North Korea to the point of obsession. I've read entire books on the country and have always wished I could interact with their locals on a real and meaningful level. Well today, my dreams came true. Apparently there's a North Korean run restaurant here in Siem Reap. The second I found out I hopped on my bike with Tamara, riding down dusty highways to find it. After some direction mishaps we found it in all it's grey-bricked-communist-era glory. We were literally the only people there. The second we walked through the doors we were swarmed by 7 pale waitresses (all the exact same height) showing us to our table (which was surrounded by all fours in wood walls almost like an office cubicle). All 7 watched us as we ordered, and didn't leave as we ate. At first I felt incredibly awkward but soon realized this was the opportunity I had been waiting for, a chance to speak with an actual North Korean. The lead waitress at the head of our table started chatting with me, asking what sports I liked, if I speak Chinese and what I do for a living. After clearing the air I was rapid-fire asking her pretty much everything I could think of from her favorite films to where she wants to travel most in the world. There's too much to put here but hop over to our blog to read our conversation, it really made my week. To me this was one of the most surreal, unbelievable experiences I've had in our whole 600 days of travel.
Day 594: Siem Reap, Cambodia Started my first day being 26 to a flag waving Danish girl singing birthday songs in her language with a box of cupcakes she ran out to get as I was sleeping off the wine and fried scorpions from the night before. After stuffing on cupcakes we debate what to do today. I end up deciding that renting a crappy bike and riding through local areas sounded best so we did just that for a few hours. Came across a very local market and people watched as the sun set. Later on we decided to do a pub crawl with a large group to 'celebrate youth' or something. I was mostly in it for the free tank top but it ended up being a great time, danced more than I have since Barcelona and we even ended up starting a big dance circle in the street. A proper way to avoid existential crisis 😊
Day 592: Siem Reap, Cambodia When you travel full time for years you find yourself running into days like these that just last forever. We're rushed through our morning, standing on a dirty sidewalk in Saigon waiting for the non-english bus attendant to point us in the direction of our bus. When he does we're shoved onto a bus intended for maybe half the amount of people on it en route for a 12 hour drive across Cambodia. 12 hours of podcasts, spotify and audiobooks later we're thrown into a dark garage on the outskirts of Siem Reap with no directions or idea of how we're going to reach our hostel 7 miles away. Luckily, as always happens in these situations, someone awesome comes to the rescue. A nice guy speaking fluent english offers a cheap ride on his Tuk Tuk and we're safely at our hostel which happens to be a three story party factory, waterfall pool and all. Within minutes of arriving we've made good friends and Tamara is dancing like Michael Jackson on a dare. 12 hour bus rides be dammed, I think we're going to like it here.
Day 591: Saigon, Vietnam These streets are insanity. A torrential barrage of activity: shop owners sleeping on the floor, mothers changing their children in the street, old women tossing buckets of water on the grime as if it makes any difference, old men limping in dusty clothes with giant smiles, steaming bubbling buckets of Pho tossing it's smell every direction and me, a 6' 4'' American in skinny jeans contorting my body to fit under the low overhangs on every street corner. People stare, they point and they call their children over to see me. And, just when I'm on the verge of feeling awkward, they smile and say hello. Every single time. It's a warm feeling I've never felt before and makes walking these streets all but an addiction.
Day 591: Saigon, Vietnam These streets are insanity. A torrential barrage of activity: shop owners sleeping on the floor, mothers changing their children in the street, old women tossing buckets of water on the grime as if it makes any difference, old men limping in dusty clothes with giant smiles, steaming bubbling buckets of Pho tossing it's smell every direction and me, a 6' 4'' American in skinny jeans contorting my body to fit under the low overhangs on every street corner. People stare, they point and they call their children over to see me. And, just when I'm on the verge of feeling awkward, they smile and say hello. Every single time. It's a warm feeling I've never felt before and makes walking these streets all but an addiction.
Day 589: Saigon, Vietnam Feeling better now, we take an early train down the coast to Saigon. We're living right on the most insane street Ive seen all year. Thousands of people swarming bars and restaurants, its honestly a bit overwhelming. We spend most of our first day seeking out local areas and getting lost in back roads. We have dinner at a small stall run by an old woman and her grandson. They served us a magic bowl of Pho I've been searching for since I've got to this country.
Day 586: Nha Trang, Vietnam Despite our best efforts my crash wounds have taken on a pretty aggressive infection. The doctors here have been all but usless so Tamara is playing nurse again. I spent the night in bed with a 103 fever but she managed to find me some good antibiotics so I'm feeling hopeful. That and the beach therapy I've prescribed myself should do just the trick 😁
Day 584: Da Lat, Vietnam The days after my big crash were daunting. Constantly afraid of infection, its been an ongoing battle. You'd think I'd learn some sort of lesson and never touch a motorbike again but somehow today I find myself on the back of a 70's Harley riding through the mountainous outskirts of Da Lat on a tour with a few people from our hostel. We stopped by pretty much every local business in Vietnam. My highlight was finally being able to try luak coffee. Its the most expensive coffee in the world as its brewed with coffee beans that come from the feces of a weasel like animal called the luak. Its something that I've wanted to try since childhood and it tasted pretty damn amazing considering the source. Musty dry plumb and a dusty aftertaste. Why don't we have this in the states??
Day 581: Da Lat, Vietnam Today is one I'll be forced to remember forever in the form of scars. I woke up early to the sound of Max jumping down from the bunk above me. "Hey man, let's rent motorcycles and ride to a waterfall." I was apprehensive to say the least. These streets are terrifying to walk down let alone attempt to awkwardly navigate with crappy motor scooters. But I gave in, realizing I may not see him again for another few years I decided to have one last adventure with my old friend. We found some scooters that barely classify as operational. The brakes barely worked, the front wheal wobbled violently and the horn made a muted 'dead goat' sound. But I shook it off, this is SE Asia after all. We ride for a few miles and things go well. The daunting stream of endless bikes turn out to be fairly simple to navigate once you understand it. But then we reach the outskirts and I find myself trapped on a pothole laden one lane dusty road with somehow even more traffic than city center. It was a constant juggling act for my life, simultaneously dodging head on collisions with aggressive truck drivers, pot holes deep enough to bend tires and struggling to even use the faulty brakes at all. But somehow, after 2 hours of terror we make it to the waterfall. It's beautiful but it's already sunset and time to head back before dark. You can imagine how much fun it was to have the same issues getting here...but in the dark. Every five minutes we'd have a 'close call' that could have genuinely been the end of my life. And then, a close call came too close. I'm thinking about where to eat later, when suddenly the front tire of my bike finds a home within a massive pothole. The entire front of the bike turns violently and I'm instantly slammed into pavement, my arm and ankle pressed and ground into the road at 60km per hour. I feel my helmeted head ricochet and glide. I lay there a moment in shock, and then reality screams at me to get off the busy road. Adrenaline picks me up and I drag the bike to the side. Some locals come out and pour hydrogen peroxide on my wounds. It burns furiously. Max finally finds me and helps clean everything. Cont. in comment below.
Day 580: Da Lat, Vietnam An early morning bus ride takes us to Da Lat. Honestly it was one of the most beautiful bus rides I've ever been on. Massive mountains with waterfalls spraying water right next to the bus as you ride up and down thin winding roads for hours. I couldn't take my eyes off the window. First impressions of Da Lat are rather mixed. It's a fairly chaotic little city tucked away in the central mountains. On one had you have plenty of flower displays and cute local eateries but on the other you have the standard vietnamese traffic. Thousands of endless motorcycles forcing you to risk death anytime you want to cross the road. You do get used to it after a while but it never becomes normal really. Our first day here we settled in to our homestay and searched out for vegetarian food for Max. He's been a vegan for years and didn't want to risk the meat in this country upsetting his body. The one vegetarian place we found has a total of two menu items, you can say they like their meat in this city I suppose
Day 579: Nha Trang, Vietnam After maybe 3 hours of sleep on the night train I woke to scenes of mountains and Vietnamese countryside. As grimy as these trains are they really bring you the best views you can get of this country. Arriving in Nha Trang its quickly apparent that this city is 100% paid for by tourist dollars. Menus are all in English and Russian, restaurants are limited to pizza and fried chickens and there are more hotels than homes. But for now we're ok with it. We wanted a city that will let us lay on the beach and its giving us that if nothing else. We're staying at a bit of a party hostel with Max. They have a 'free flow happy hour' on the rooftop for an hour that made things interesting. Made friends with some Swedish girls and danced a bit in one of the many cheesy tourist traps.
Day 578: Hoi An, Vietnam Our last day here we sadly ate cane sugar with Moon as she told us about her life running a guest house. Took a final walk around the city feeling bummed and wondering if we'll ever even see any of this again. One bus later and we're in Da Nang waiting for my friend Max to show up. He traveled all the way out here from Seattle to see little old me and hop around Vietnam with us for a few days. When he got here we took him to our favorite Bánh Xèo spot and marveled together at the chaotic beauty that is local vietnamese dining. Now we're riding on a cramped night south to Nha Trang. There's an old man in front of me leaning deep into my lap as he sleeps and a guy behind me yelling something into his cell phone all night. This should be interesting.
Day 577: Hoi An, Vietnam I biked way too much yesterday. Like so much my feet still feel like they're moving. So we took it easy today, walked around this city soaking in the strange yellow architecture and getting cappuccinos at our favorite cafe with a rooftop view. We met with Landon again tonight and talked about life in Canada (which sounds awesome) with our free bottle of vodka. And later on, we finally found the BEST damn Bánh Mì in Vietnam finally after trying literally hundreds of places it turned out to be some random woman on a corner during our walk home. I was never able to find her again, I'm beginning to think she was the spirit of Bánh Mì.
Day 576: Hoi An, Vietnam We made a Canadian friend in Chiang Mai a few weeks ago named Landon that we found out was staying at a hotel next to ours. We met up with our pathetic rusted rental bikes and dodged through traffic up north to a remote beach far away from most everything else. Our method was kind of to just point to remote looking areas on our map and just go there. It took us to a deserted beach where we danced for Landon's GoPro, then over to a small island coconut farm community where we gave him a taste of his first coconut water, and finally ended with us taking a boat ride through a small delta wrapping around the various farm lands. Naturally we ended the night with my favorite "Cao Lau" spot and went to bed with massive cramps yet again.
Day 572: Hoi An, Vietnam A rather wild night out in a city you'd never expected to have such a great nightlife. After a day of walking the streets here, dodging tourists and sweating more water than we could drink, we decided all we really needed was a cocktail. It turns out Hoi An has the cheapest drinks you can find...anywhere. We literally got an entire bottle of vodka for free from one bar just for showing up. aaaand so yeah we're all set to stay in this city for another week 😉
Day 571: Hoi An, Vietnam If you talk to literally anyone about Vietnam the first thing they'll ask is if you made it to Hoi An. We didn't want to miss out on the hype so we hopped on a local bus this morning paying a mere $0.50 to barrel down country roads to the ancient city. We found an amazing homestay close to center and met our vibrant host named Moon. After tea we explored the city a bit trying out the 'Best Bánh Mì in Vietnam' that we saw Anthony Bourdain eat in one of his episodes. That night Moon invited us to a barbecue with her friends. They couldn't have been more friendly, passing us beers and teaching us how to say cheer in Vietnamese: Một hai ba, yo! Later on I ended up winning 40,000 dong in an intense game of black jack with her friends. Drinks were on me.
Day 569: Da Nang, Vietnam In an effort to see the more local sides of Da Nang we decided to trek up north of the city, far far away from any signs of tourism. It felt awkward at first being the only tourists for miles, you can really feel everyone's eyes on you constantly. But after a while you get used to the stares and I actually started to like it. Children pass by on the street waving and screaming 'hello' with huge smiles. Locals say hi and ask how we're doing. Nothing but good vibes and smiles everywhere we went. This was my favorite walk I think we've ever gone on and had me smiling so huge when we were done.
Day 567: Da Nang, Vietnam Da Nang is pretty much known for two things. Good seafood and The 'Marble Mountains'. Having tried the seafood already it was time to conquer the near-mythical mountains deep in the rural south of this strange city. So we hopped on a local bus to check it out. We were a bit underwhelmed when we first arrived. We've seen so many damn mountains over the past year that we've honestly become a bit jaded. They were slightly small so we began to descend the steps to head home. As we went down the steps I looked at our map and saw that there was a cave on top of the mountain that I totally missed. We decided to give it another go and when we got to the cave we were again slightly disappointed. Lots of tourists swarming in and out without much to really see. But Tamara wouldn't give up, she pushed through the crowds and ended up finding a tiny gap in the rocks leading upwards. She climbed through so I had to follow, and at the end of the gap we let out onto the very tip of the mountain.
Day 564: Da Nang, Vietnam Second day at our '90's post apocalyptic luxury hotel'. We at the beach straight soaking sun for hours. A rare nice day in Da Nang has to be properly appreciated with sun and sand. And watching tourists literally take thousands of selfies without even touching the water is all the entertainment we needed. Later on we're back at our favorite bar from yesterday and get creeped out by an older American dude that wouldn't leave us alone 😵

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