If you've never tried Couch Surfing, I'd highly recommend it. You get on their website, make a profile, find people who are also on their website and live in the area you are traveling to, and then you ask them if you can sleep for free in their house. There's another website, warmshowers.org, which is like Couch Surfing, but just for cycle tourists. Every time I've used one of these services, I've had an awesome time, and our 24 hour stay in Song La, Vietnam, with Pooh (below, on the left), was no exception. We were Pooh's first couch surfers, and he gave us the royal treatment. After lunch, we went to Son La Prison, built by the French colonialists and used to detain communist reactionaries, then destroyed by the Americans in the Vietnam War (yay, we did one good thing there?). It was a pretty grim looking place, but a really interesting afternoon. It also gave me the chance to take some really moody photos.
Then there was dinner and jamming back at Pooh's house, and I slept in my hammock out on his porch!
Thanks Pooh! (and your cousin too!)
