Thursday, July 27, 2006
Hello... You Buy Something OR Desire = Suffering
Hoi An is about 40k south of Da Nang, which we flew to in the mornign.
Nha Trang to Da Nang was flying from one former US military base to
another, though many buildigns were demolished, some were still
untouched and both airports had dozens of Quonset huts rusting into
oblivion in the encroaching jungle.
The city of Hoi An is one of the oldest surviving old cities in Vietnam,
complete with original architecture and houses and miraculously survived
the war and countless floods. The houses are chinese influenced, one or
two floors with big courtyards all painted shades of pale yellow.
Hibiscus and morning glory vines tumble from the tiled roofs and overhand
the storefronts. This had lead to a recent UNESCO-fication. For those
who don't know, UNESCO is a UN agency that picks sites of important
cultrual world heritage and preserves them through grants. This is
wonderful as it keeps the town original, but also draws throngs of
tourists and leads to a bit of a disneyfication, though still preferable
to giant hotels and high rises in historic places. It reminded me very
much of some of the colonial towns in central america- San Miguel,
Antigua, etc. Its absolutely beautiful and picturesque though, in spite
of major construction, with charming alleyways and exotic buildings along
the river. By nightfall the town takes on a still more magical and
exotic air, lit by paper and silk lanterns reflecting in the river.
The guidebooks described the town as a shopping haven, which we thought we would successfully avoid, but the stores and everyone on the streets kept calling us in, (hello, you buy something!) until we each ultimately ended up with a few more cutom made clothes than we anticipated. It kind of lead to a stressful experience of appointments and returning to the shops repeatedly, a very apt experience of desire = suffering. The people can make anything though, its incredible. We went to a shoe store that would custom make to your feet any shoand the place was filled with handmade perfect imitation nikes in any colors or materials you'd like, I got myself a pair of custom fake asics for $10. I also got a perfect imitation of my favorite cowboy shirt, which had recently fallen apart.
The food here, oh, its been amazing all over again. A french restaurant
with patisserie attached serving the best pain au chocolat I've had
outside of france, along with incredible nicoise and crab sandwiches.
Dinner was a set of courses, each more amazing than the one before it.
Cau Lau, the local specialty made from water only froma certain secret
well in the town- roasted pork in a clear broth with noodles and herbs,
more fried pork "croutons" absorbing the liquid. "roses" of ground shrimp
in wontons with exquisite dipping sauces, rice omelettes fried to crispy
perfection and rolled up with herbs, and a beautifully presented sliced
grilled stuffed squid, costing mere pennies. These were all augmented
with stacks of herbs- peppermint, spearmint, vietnamese mint, basil, thai
basil, lemon basil and an assortment of less pleasant vietnamese herbs.
The following night we learned to cook at another restaurant, at which we
learned the secrets of spring rolls, a delicious squid salad, and stuffed
fish grilled in banana leaves, as well as eatnig pork and shrimp
dumplings. These countries are surprisingly unfriendly to vegetarians and
vegans (not to mention kosher and halal dieters). Free breakfast
interpreted banana pancake with chocolate as banana omlet with chocolate
milk, but close enough.
We managed to get one of the last seats on the reunification express train
from Hoi An to Hue, which was more striking landscapes, as our trained
lumbered its way through lush jungle mountains, precariously winding on
cliffs that overlooked empty white sand beaches with turquouse water and
the occasional floating village hundres of feet below. Through the jungle
it was also clear how impossible a guerilla war would have been to win,
the thickness of it and the sheer size of the jungle made it seem
impenetrable to anyone who hadnt spent their life there.
Monday, July 24, 2006
Mui Ne
Mui Ne has been a beautiful beach town, and we landed a room about ten
feet from the beach sand, and thirty feet from the waves, which lulled us
to sleep in our little bungalow. Spent the first day on the beach, and
ate an incredible dinner next door at a little vietnamese place, having
lemongrass grilled squid and a grilled whole fish with some kind of
delicious essence on it. They gave us deep friend bananas for dessert.
The second day we rented a motorbikle and managed to not die on the way to
the great red sand dunes a few miles up the road. I only had one
"incident" of "crashing" the bike into a cafe in the fishing village up
the road, much to the amusement of the locals eating their breakast of
cigarettes, baguette and coffee. The dunes were very dramatic, as
enormous dunes tend to be, and much like those we saw in Morocco only a
year ago- of course, the Sahara didnt have a blue ocean in the distance.
Lunch was a frustrating affair which involved undercooked food and
ill-behaved children, one of whom threw a coconut shell at Olivia's head.
Its a damn good thing they don't have tipping here, because they obviously
would have gotten nothing for their level of service and hospitality.
Survived the drive back, and watched the monsoon roll in and the few kite
surfers scramble for cover on the beach. Returned to the same dinner
place where we had a steamed whole fish with ginger and onions-
incredible, and the best spring rolls I've ever had. Glass noodle wrapped
shrimp rolls, friend to a perfect crisp and accompanied by more rice paper
and the requisite stack of fresh herbs that alone would cost 20$ at whole
foods.
Morning we were up to have a last beach morning before the bus to Nha
Trang, which we shared with the Saigon high school soccer team, making
for a unique busride expereince. The view out the window was amazing.
First winding through the giant white sand dunes, pocketed with lotus
ponds like miniature oasises. Further north the south china sea on our
right and fog slowly descending on the marble mountains to the left,
which seemed to jut starkly out of the impossibly flat and impoissibly
day-glo green rice paddies. Finally arriving in Nha Trang as the rain broke, Our Nha Trang hotel, the Perfume Grass Inn
is about the nicest place we've had, a pity we cant stay longer before
heading to Hoi An tomorrow AM.
Saturday, July 22, 2006
It Ain't Coca-Cola, Its Rice
We headed out for the Cao Dai temple early this morning to view the grand cathedral of Vietnam's homegrown religious cult, (though it is two million strong) Cao Daism worships Buddha, Jesus, Confucius and Lao Tzu, and counts among their saints Charlie Chaplin, Winston Churchill and Victor Hugo. Go figure. Their grand cathedral, predictably, was an uttlerly insane piece of architecture that looks as if Walt Disney had designed the vatican. On acid. With only day-glo paint. But the service itself was interesting, though overall maybe not worth the hours it took to get all the way out there. Going into and out of Saigon itself takes forever given the traffic, which means it takes about an hour to go about ten miles out of the city limits, and then driving beyond the city is hardly easy.
From the temple we visited the Cu Chi tunnels, where the vietcong dug a 100+mile long, 100 foot deep tunnel system to hide from the americans. They lived, worked, performed surgery, planned operations all inside these claustrophobic clay tunnels. First we got a chance to watch a completely ridiculous propaganda movie about the "peaceful cu chi people and their farming way of life" before the "devil face american bomb destroyed their peaceful ways" and their great innovations of a "tunnel system unlike any other system in the world" and various descriptions of heroic peasants who killed hundreds of americans, etc etc. After this simpsons-esque film (which Olivia and I were the only ones laughing at), we got a chance to tour the grounds. Speakers hidden in the trees played war sound effects interspersed with patriotic northern vietnam songs, and we got a chance to look at some extremely grisly looking VC booby-traps, with graphic illustrations. Finally we got to see the tunnels themselves, and crawl on hands and knees through the tunnels, which were slightly larger than my body, having been widened for western tourists. Only a few arm-sized milipedes in the tunnels themselves, none of the scorpions I'd read about, then again, it was rather dark. The tour wound up at a firing range, with the opportunity to fire off a few AK47 rounds, (Olivia opted out of this part of the tour). The gift shop stocked the typical tacky vietnam goods, plus rusted old zippos and american dogtags for sale. Returned to Saigon to an incredible dinner, again at Bao. Reprise of the rolled grilled beef rolls, and the added grilled crab vermicelli with black pepper. Amazing.
The next morning we spent wandering around the city, as the only bus choices were either 7am or 8 pm, not the most convenient. Cholon, the Chinatown, was disappointingly similar to any other Chinatown I've visited in any major city. The French Quarter was very pleasant to stroll around, cafes, colonial architecture, and leafy boulevards. Whiled the time away at french cafes over iced coffee and cheesecake before getting on the late bus to Mui Ne.
The only bad part of the day was 1. losing my ATM card, 2. Writing a much better version of this and having it erase, and 3. The bus getting in at 2 am to a tiny beach town.
Did I mention also that I got a gray hair last week? This was my first and a highly unpleasant experience that I felt was overshadowed by various heavy entries, so am only mentioning it now to not appear extraordinarily shallow.
Friday, July 21, 2006
Same Same
Got up and had a good breakfast across the street, finally managing to convince the restaurant not to load so much sugar into our coffee until its a vicously sticky syrup. We wandered around HCMC, which was quite a lot nicer by daylight, more French and cosmopolitan feeling, though the third world grime is still covering everything in sight. Olivia got a great silk shirt/top and skirt made at a tailor, and fromt here we headed to the war remnants museum (formerly the war crimes museum). It was closed for lunch, so we spent some time exploring the Pagoda of the Jade Emperor, a strange and very chinese feeling place with amazing light shafts coming in through the thick incense smoke, against bizarre giant statues of old emperors and the more standard golden buddhas. I managed to get in some great pictures, and we stumbled back in the heat across the city to the museum.
It was a standard third world museum, though very strange to see an entire building and multiple exhibits dedicated to the horrors that were "the american war of aggression." Exhibits ranged from the My Lai and other similar massacres, to the environmental and physical effects of Agent Orange (including jars with deformed fetuses), and photo after photo of bombing raids, deaths and massive destruction. The museum was decidedly one sided, though did include an exhibit on worldwide and US protests to the war, although there really arent many sides. Our side was clearly both wrong and futile. People were so passionate about this forty years ago, refusing to give in and insisting that the US fight, and in the end it didnt matter at all that we lost. Communism didnt spread, the people were better off than they were under a US puppet regime. All that was accomplished was enormous, catastrophic suffering on both sides. It was eerie in light of current events as well, to see how angry the world was at the arrogance of the US, fearful that Vietnam would lead to World War III, and yet we did manage to recover our international standing somewhat, though forever tainted. Disturbing too were the war crimes then that echo those now in the world. The racism that fuels it, the all out destruciton of villages, rapes, torture, massacres, children and women ground into tank treads, because you know its the same shit then as now in Iraq, as Afghanistan, Tibet, and now Lebanon and wherever else there is war and invasion. In the end, I think I found it more upsetting that either Tuol Sleng prison or the Killing Fields in Cambodia...
At least dinner was good- in fact, the best since arriving in Vietnam. Roll your own rice papers with grilled beef and a heaping basket of fresh herbs (basil, mint and others) to stuff into the rolls and likely the best meal of the trip. Much better than the other night's soursop soup, which literally tasted like fruit punch with fish floating in it. Verdict- I do not like the taste of soursop. The thing about VN food is the freshness and the herbs- just absolutely verdant piles of greens and herbs used as garnish in the soups, rolls, salads, and everything...
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Charlie Don't Surf
Spent the morning wandering the market in search of our now-favorite iced coffee, served best "to go" in a double set of plastic bags and straw the better for wandering with. The town is small enough and distant enough that we are really oddities to be wandering around as white people. We walked through some back alleys, and watched children excitedly run inside to call their parents and siblings out to look at us. Its almost like being a celebrity, with everyone pointing and saying hello and waving, amazed that we have chosen to eat at their humble market stall. The tourists that do come this far south seem to only be on package tours, and even then its rare.
Vietnam generally feels a bit more overwhelming than Cambodia, but maybe because our pace of travel has sped up to one night in each location for the next few days. People are a bit less friendly, and there is almost no english spoken. At one restaurant today we even had the owner bring out their kid to speak english, which is typical, but today they trotted out their six-year-old to translate the menu. (we passed on the chopped serpent salad, though did go for the eel in tamarind sauce which was a bit of a disappointment.) At least things are cheaper here than vietnam, our hotel last night was six dollars after we complained of a broken air conditioner, and meals have averaged about three dollars..>..> combined! A much better bargain that the outrageously overpriced 2-3$ entrees in Phnom Penh.
After much confusion, we found ourselves on a bus to Cantho, where we are now. The midday bus seemed to be the cigarette smuggling bus- apparently most black market goods (remember, Vietnam is still semi-communist) come by water from thailand via cambodia, essentially followingt he same route that we did. As we got on the bus, the woman next to us open up the three trash bags full of rubber banded cigarette packs and began strapping them to herself- arms, torso, legs, and then layering clothing over strings of packs until she looked obese and was "dressed" head-to-toe in cigarette packs four deep under her clothing. It was completely insane, and I'm glad I took pictures as its impossible to do justice to in words. Imagine a cartoon suicide bomber with dynamite strapped to him, but all packs of thai cigarettes, and you may start to get the idea. The bus was also tiny, think of a minivan stuffed with sixteen vietnamese people plus olivia and myself. This vehicle also honked the entire trip, though seemed to have a clown horn, making the whole thing just that much more absurd. It seems we're finally settled here in Cantho, where my uncle was once stationed thirty six years ago, and ready to explore the floating markets tomorrow. A good french dinner (steak frites!) and we headed to bed.
In the morning to get onto the river we were forced into joining up with a day tour, because the communist regulations fine anyone taking a foreigner out on their boat for any other reason. This makes for a completely ridiculous tour experience, and has the added annoyance of sharing a boat with a bunch of aussies and french folk and feeling like a tourist. Normally when travelling in Central America or something, I'd try to wrangle a local fisherman to take me out, but it was a definite no go in the People's Republic. All the same, the tour was cool if a bit ridiculous in its communist efficiency.
The floating markets were a real sight to behold, although we only got to see one. Because people live their lives on boats- are born, grow up, marry, have children and die on their family sampan, they also have to access and trade goods by their boat as well. So the floating market is a giant flotilla of little sampans and larger boats selling everything from cups of coffee and baguette to plates of noodles to sacks of rice, and even coffins as the river people trade their wares and do their shopping. They hang a sample froma bamboo pole so that you can see froma distance what each boat is selling and head for it. Its really incredible and beautiful sight, though the pictures don't capture the noxious smell of diesel that is omnipresent anytime hundreds of boats congregate in one spot...>..>
From there we saw some other little sights, a rice factory, a noodle factory, and then had a communist style "vote" for whether we would see another floating market or go to the country side. It went like this:
"Okay, I think we can go to another market exactly the same as the one we saw, or go to the countryside which is much nicer. I think 99f people want ot go to countryside, and see monkey bridge, but first we must vote. Anyone who wants to go to countryside, raise your hand!"
A few people raise their hands, many people grumble.
"Okay, we have vote, now we go to the countryside!"
Yes, the opposition never got a chance to vote anything but the party ticket!
But the countryside was beautiful, and we somehow found our hotel in Mytho, another delta town though less charming than the previous two. There were also blasting Ho Chi Minh speeches out of loudspeakers, alternating with very dramtic music. Following a mediocre we walked home, this time the speakers blaring jingle bells for some inexplicable reason. Speaking of Christmas carols- I am not making this up but when the busses back up, they play "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" instead of that beeep-beeep-beeep sound that they do in America.
Tuesday Company
Another lazy day on the delta, some boat rides through small backwater canals and islands north of mytho, and another tour with french and europeans smoking cigarettes and complaining that no one speaks the language of the original colonists. We saw a few more factories (coconut candy, herbal wine), listened to some local music, and some very pleasant canoe rides through some natural canals. An absolutely ridicuosly disorganized guide was quite amusing, and we did get to experience some Vietnamese ferries, which make the Martha's Vineyard Governor look like the state room in the QE2. They do run with ruthless efficiency, with people literally jumping on and off as the boat is still moving. Shoving our way onto the boat was an adventure in itself. The people have a very different cultural understanding of the "line" than we have here in the west. Its a bit more of a "v" shape than a line shape, with everyone shoving through and a concept much more about width than length.
Ho Chi Minh City is completely overwhelming, with an even more terrifying and huge swarm of motorbikes than I've seen anywhere in my life. Thankfully there was little street crossing to be done, and we found a decent place for cheap (Kim's "room-for-rent"), in the backpacker ghetto. Decent dinner at a place also called Kim's, with a n okay stir fried squid dish.
Saturday, July 15, 2006
Apocalypse Wow
The vietnamese unit of currency is the dong. As in, we just took one million dong out of the ATM machine. This is endlessly hilarious. As is the fact that the names of everything are "Hung Long," "Phat Dong" and "Phuoc this and phuoc that. But let me back up...
We departed Phnom Penh on a little chugging boat yesterday with about six other folks aon board, heading down a mekong tributary toward Vietnam. Yet another experience that feels like we ought to be in a movie- Apocalypse Now perhaps, as we watched junk boats lazily grind past us and the mist came in over the wooden hut villages on the shores of the Mekong Delta. I can only say it must have been terrifying to fight a war in a place like this, so eerie and so foreign, particularly as the fog came in and mixed with the smoke from burning crop fields in the distance. The border crossing here is new, and people have rarely seen white folks, so we were quite the attraction from the back of our little boat as the only white faces many of the people have seen.
The border crossing was another experience entirely- straight out of a bad third world movie. First we are boarded by a vietnamese expediter who jumps off his boat in the middle of the voyage to check all of our passports and visas. An hour later, we reach the end of Cambodia, where we "dock" on the side of a dirt cliff with steps simply scut out of the earth. Scrambling up the side of the banks with our bags, we are released from The Kingdom of Cambodia and climb back down into the boat. We are accosted by children the entire time begging and trying to sell us sodas. The boat goes another ten minutes downriver before we need to enter Vietnam. (I never understand what lies between the checkpoints, I mean, who's country is which... I guess it just absolutely doesnt matter). We hand over our passports again, then go through some checkpoint. We then have to walk over another border, at which point more screaming children try to sell us vietnamese money for our dollars and are continually running away whenever the immigration agent, who is maybe three years older than them, walks by in a bizarre cat and mouse game. We wait here for another ten minutes, then run to the boat to get our bags, run back to the boat (which has drifted down as we walked over the border) to get our bags. These we set on the x-ray machine conveyer belt (which is off) and remove immediately and are shuttled running back to the boat by our expediter, who explains that things are going more smoothly today than yesterday when he failed to give the border agents a big enough "gift." Oh well...
We pulled into Chau Doc, our destination, another hour later, just as the monsoon began. The boat had earlier turned up the mekong to ply through countless villages floating houses and stilt houses. Its amazing to see how these people live in those places or on old wooden junk boats with open fires on board, actually wearing those conical hats like it was forty years ago, like it was 200 years ago. (although now you can hear the universal sound of the nokia cell phone ring echoing across the mekong). Our boat actually pulled right up to a restaurant filled with drunken vietnamese businessmen, as we stumbled through the restaurant and into the village. Its a true backwater, not much to do, but we found our hotel and a decent dinner of fresh vietnamese spring rolls and rice noodle soup.
Currently reading :
The Sorrow of War
By Bao Ninh
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Friday, July 14, 2006
Kampuchea
Friday, July 14, 2006
Auschwitz on the Mekong
Is what they call the killing fields here in Cambodia...
Its very surreal to be constantly accosted by tuk-tuk/cyclo and moto drivers, all hoping to take you to the tourist attractions, particularly when they are "You want to go genocide museum?" "I take you see the killing fields death camp now?" We did see Tuol Sleng yesterday, the notorious interrogation center that processed 14,000 people from children to elders and sent all but 12 to their deaths at choeng oek killing fields. It is a high school adapted by the Khmer Rouge as a for prison and interrogation center- the banal classrooms bricked up to make cells, playground equipment used to hang prisoners, and other classrooms used for electrocution, beating and torture. The guards were often 10-15 years old, taken because they would not refuse the jobs given to them and could be trained as a new generation of torturers. There is little to say, except that it was horrifying. More interesting still to be there with some very distantly related (olivia's dad's, cousin's husbands brothers girlfriend's niece - there has to be another closer connection...) cambodian friends who showed us around the city and to hear their reflections on their nation's history. What would I do if I were forced to kill for my country. At age 18? At age 13? Why did the world ignore such large scale atrocities. The killing fields were equally depressing, a hundred foot stupa filled with skulls, the mass graves of 20,000 men women and children, their bones and clothing still visible beneath our feet as we wakled over them, trying to feel, trying to undertand what happened. (and this only one of hundreds of such sights around the country, still being discovered)You could see in the skulls where they had been bashed in with clubs to save money on expensive bullets. Weirder still was the local kids playing and laughing around the mass graves, swimming in the swamp adjoining the killing fields and that probably had bodies in it as well. Millions killed in that way. Pol Pot and his "murderous clique" as the signs kept telling us killed almost 3 million people, destroyed whole villages, 2000 buddhist temples, 600 mosques, thousands of schools, emptied cities to force people to work on the land, all in four years, and all for what. I don't know what more to write without becoming embarrasingly sentimental and philosophical, but its just so hard, so sensless, so crazy... Theres nothing I could say anyway that wouldnt be better and more appropriately said by a survivcor, so I'll sign off for now...
The Road to Phnom Penh
Tonle Sap river/ lake was too low to take the boat from siem reap down to Phnom Penh, so we took the overland route instead. Our driver seemed to spent about 30% of the time with his hand on the horn, scaring off motorbikes loaded up with families, water buffalo towed oxcarts, and anyone else nearing us in the road. it was a beautiful drive, through rice paddy after rice paddy, each slightly different hue of green, the stalks growing in the still water and reflecting the houses and palm trees above. Yes, people do still live in thatch houses that are perched on stilts ten feet above the paddies, and only one in ten even has a metal or plastic roof.
We made one bathroom stop in a village where we were inundated by people selling anything to whoever might stop, inlcuding a six year old girl selling a giant platter of friend tarantulas. oh yes, and i have the pictures to prove it. needless to say, i passed on her offer, even of a free sample. They were fresh though, as demonstrated by the still living one she had scampering about on her shoulder.
We finally got to Phnom Penh not too long later, and found our hotel. its a bit like a filthy third world Paris with Cambodians everywhere. It is bizarre to have the french style roundabouts, architecture and boulevards in this unbearably hot and muggy tropical locale. The traffic is again insane, not unlike bangkok. Difficult navigation with no sidewalks, or when there is a sidewalk people are driving their motorbikes on it. The traffic also goes mostly in the right direction, though about ten percent of the vehicles drive on the wrong side of the street, and there are neither stoplights nor even streetlights making nighttime walking a bit less than charming. We walked along the river until the monsoon hit. Waited out the rain up in the Foreign Correpsondants Club, the expat hangout for obvious reasons. Its the whole art-deco bar with comfy leather couches, giant ferns and ceiling fans with french pop music playing experience. Out the window you could hardly see twenty feet the rain was so heavy, but it did manage to clear the air a bit, and let up enough to allow to to continue our walk around the royal palace.
Overall, the royal grounds were a bit like a mini version of Thailand's, though with a more distinctly pronounced french influnce on the architecture. The silver pagoda was pretty cool, with a solid gold buddha and the floors entirely made of sterling silver. Strange to have such ostentation in such a poor country, and strange too that the khmer rouge didnt destroy or sell this all off when they took phnom penh. Overall, a fairly nice city though, with somehow more monks than thailand, at least per capita wandering the streets. And the drive was filled with dozens of construction sites rebuildign the destroyed temples and building new wats, a hopeful sign of cultural recovery post-khmer rouge, though apparently many of the holocaust architects have been found hiding out as monks in the monasteries.
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
angkor whaaaa???
A flight on a minivan-sized bangkok airways flight landed us safely in Siem Reap two nights ago. We arrived at night with only the full moon reflecting in the rice paddies below, which was quite beautiful though impossible to capture by photograph out the window. We took motorbikes into town, blinded and choking on the dust, as our seemingly twelve-year old motorbike drivers balanced our packs on the bikes and headed into the night toward Siem Reap. (Thats not the worst I've seen- today we saw a kid with two full sized pigs-ALIVE! on the back on his motorbike). We got the usual w"'e cant find your hotel'' runaround, always more annoying in the dark, but demanded they stop and just wandered around until finding something.
The khmer food has generally been good- a fish curry called Amok, a local specialty, and sat on the balcony looking out over the sea of motorbikes in the french quarter. The roads are incredibly bad, so you can hardly breathe except after the rain because of all the dust. (The Khmer Rouge killed anyone with enough education to build roads, be an engineer, etc etc making rebuilding extremely difficult.) The French quarter is nice though, New Orleansy apparently with that french colonial charm, that makes me feel like I should be smoking cigarettes, drinking coffee and speaking only in French. Of course, the children here now all speak perfect English, but more on that later.
OF course, the most amazing thing about Siem Reap is not the dusty colonial-france-meets-wild-west charm, but the ruins of Angkor Wat nad the associated ruined city of Angkor Thom. Words cannot do them justice, pictures can hardly do them justice. They are like being in a movie- more incredible because they are so huge that even all the japanese tourists in the world couldnt make them seem crowded. (by the way, do Japanese people spend their lives in Japan looking at each other's vacation photos?) Many places we just climbed up the ruins with no one else there, exploring the carvings and crumbling spledor of the jungle temples. The forest is growing right through ruins in a number of spots, and, well, its just impossible to describe.
Many of the temples are still somewhat active, and you stumble across monks or nuns chanting or giving blessings by enormous buddhas. Heartbreaking though, is the amount of theft and destruction over the years. Its a full sized city in ruins, making it impossible to keep track of the thousands of statues and wall carvings, especially during the wars of the past forty years. There were places where we could have easily just picked up artifacts and thrown them in our bags with no one ever the wiser. You wouldnt even need a chisel. Its fairly disturbing...
There are thousands of adorable khmer kids everywhere speaking impressive english and selling you "cold drink mista" every time you turn around, but its otherwise a very peaceful spot. Even our few words in broken Khmer only seemed to encourage them, not make them leave. And the english is good enough, that they have a refuation for any excuse. "No, you would not come here if you dont have money... My water is better, best in Cambodge... if you are not thirsty now, you buy and save for later... my exact same tshirt is better than all the other exact same t-shirts."
Overall, up there in the top 5 most beautiful places I've ever been. Highly recommended if you can withstand the completely insane heat and humidity, crazy bugs, filth, hassle factor, tiny airplanes or 12 hour busrides, and the literal monsoon rains. I must say though, huddling inside a thousand year old temple as the rain and wind beats at the stone is a pretty cozy place to be.
Auschwitz on the Mekong
Is what they call the killing fields here in Cambodia...
Its very surreal to be constantly accosted by tuk-tuk/cyclo and moto drivers, all hoping to take you to the tourist attractions, particularly when they are "You want to go genocide museum?" "I take you see the killing fields death camp now?" We did see Tuol Sleng yesterday, the notorious interrogation center that processed 14,000 people from children to elders and sent all but 12 to their deaths at choeng oek killing fields. It is a high school adapted by the Khmer Rouge as a for prison and interrogation center- the banal classrooms bricked up to make cells, playground equipment used to hang prisoners, and other classrooms used for electrocution, beating and torture. The guards were often 10-15 years old, taken because they would not refuse the jobs given to them and could be trained as a new generation of torturers. There is little to say, except that it was horrifying. More interesting still to be there with some very distantly related (olivia's dad's, cousin's husbands brothers girlfriend's niece - there has to be another closer connection...) cambodian friends who showed us around the city and to hear their reflections on their nation's history. What would I do if I were forced to kill for my country. At age 18? At age 13? Why did the world ignore such large scale atrocities. The killing fields were equally depressing, a hundred foot stupa filled with skulls, the mass graves of 20,000 men women and children, their bones and clothing still visible beneath our feet as we wakled over them, trying to feel, trying to undertand what happened. (and this only one of hundreds of such sights around the country, still being discovered)You could see in the skulls where they had been bashed in with clubs to save money on expensive bullets. Weirder still was the local kids playing and laughing around the mass graves, swimming in the swamp adjoining the killing fields and that probably had bodies in it as well. Millions killed in that way. Pol Pot and his "murderous clique" as the signs kept telling us killed almost 3 million people, destroyed whole villages, 2000 buddhist temples, 600 mosques, thousands of schools, emptied cities to force people to work on the land, all in four years, and all for what. I don't know what more to write without becoming embarrasingly sentimental and philosophical, but its just so hard, so sensless, so crazy... Theres nothing I could say anyway that wouldnt be better and more appropriately said by a survivcor, so I'll sign off for now...
The Road to Phnom Penh
Tonle Sap river/ lake was too low to take the boat from siem reap down to Phnom Penh, so we took the overland route instead. Our driver seemed to spent about 30% of the time with his hand on the horn, scaring off motorbikes loaded up with families, water buffalo towed oxcarts, and anyone else nearing us in the road. it was a beautiful drive, through rice paddy after rice paddy, each slightly different hue of green, the stalks growing in the still water and reflecting the houses and palm trees above. Yes, people do still live in thatch houses that are perched on stilts ten feet above the paddies, and only one in ten even has a metal or plastic roof.
We made one bathroom stop in a village where we were inundated by people selling anything to whoever might stop, inlcuding a six year old girl selling a giant platter of friend tarantulas. oh yes, and i have the pictures to prove it. needless to say, i passed on her offer, even of a free sample. They were fresh though, as demonstrated by the still living one she had scampering about on her shoulder.
We finally got to Phnom Penh not too long later, and found our hotel. its a bit like a filthy third world Paris with Cambodians everywhere. It is bizarre to have the french style roundabouts, architecture and boulevards in this unbearably hot and muggy tropical locale. The traffic is again insane, not unlike bangkok. Difficult navigation with no sidewalks, or when there is a sidewalk people are driving their motorbikes on it. The traffic also goes mostly in the right direction, though about ten percent of the vehicles drive on the wrong side of the street, and there are neither stoplights nor even streetlights making nighttime walking a bit less than charming. We walked along the river until the monsoon hit. Waited out the rain up in the Foreign Correpsondants Club, the expat hangout for obvious reasons. Its the whole art-deco bar with comfy leather couches, giant ferns and ceiling fans with french pop music playing experience. Out the window you could hardly see twenty feet the rain was so heavy, but it did manage to clear the air a bit, and let up enough to allow to to continue our walk around the royal palace.
Overall, the royal grounds were a bit like a mini version of Thailand's, though with a more distinctly pronounced french influnce on the architecture. The silver pagoda was pretty cool, with a solid gold buddha and the floors entirely made of sterling silver. Strange to have such ostentation in such a poor country, and strange too that the khmer rouge didnt destroy or sell this all off when they took phnom penh. Overall, a fairly nice city though, with somehow more monks than thailand, at least per capita wandering the streets. And the drive was filled with dozens of construction sites rebuildign the destroyed temples and building new wats, a hopeful sign of cultural recovery post-khmer rouge, though apparently many of the holocaust architects have been found hiding out as monks in the monasteries.
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
angkor whaaaa???
A flight on a minivan-sized bangkok airways flight landed us safely in Siem Reap two nights ago. We arrived at night with only the full moon reflecting in the rice paddies below, which was quite beautiful though impossible to capture by photograph out the window. We took motorbikes into town, blinded and choking on the dust, as our seemingly twelve-year old motorbike drivers balanced our packs on the bikes and headed into the night toward Siem Reap. (Thats not the worst I've seen- today we saw a kid with two full sized pigs-ALIVE! on the back on his motorbike). We got the usual w"'e cant find your hotel'' runaround, always more annoying in the dark, but demanded they stop and just wandered around until finding something.
The khmer food has generally been good- a fish curry called Amok, a local specialty, and sat on the balcony looking out over the sea of motorbikes in the french quarter. The roads are incredibly bad, so you can hardly breathe except after the rain because of all the dust. (The Khmer Rouge killed anyone with enough education to build roads, be an engineer, etc etc making rebuilding extremely difficult.) The French quarter is nice though, New Orleansy apparently with that french colonial charm, that makes me feel like I should be smoking cigarettes, drinking coffee and speaking only in French. Of course, the children here now all speak perfect English, but more on that later.
OF course, the most amazing thing about Siem Reap is not the dusty colonial-france-meets-wild-west charm, but the ruins of Angkor Wat nad the associated ruined city of Angkor Thom. Words cannot do them justice, pictures can hardly do them justice. They are like being in a movie- more incredible because they are so huge that even all the japanese tourists in the world couldnt make them seem crowded. (by the way, do Japanese people spend their lives in Japan looking at each other's vacation photos?) Many places we just climbed up the ruins with no one else there, exploring the carvings and crumbling spledor of the jungle temples. The forest is growing right through ruins in a number of spots, and, well, its just impossible to describe.
Many of the temples are still somewhat active, and you stumble across monks or nuns chanting or giving blessings by enormous buddhas. Heartbreaking though, is the amount of theft and destruction over the years. Its a full sized city in ruins, making it impossible to keep track of the thousands of statues and wall carvings, especially during the wars of the past forty years. There were places where we could have easily just picked up artifacts and thrown them in our bags with no one ever the wiser. You wouldnt even need a chisel. Its fairly disturbing...
There are thousands of adorable khmer kids everywhere speaking impressive english and selling you "cold drink mista" every time you turn around, but its otherwise a very peaceful spot. Even our few words in broken Khmer only seemed to encourage them, not make them leave. And the english is good enough, that they have a refuation for any excuse. "No, you would not come here if you dont have money... My water is better, best in Cambodge... if you are not thirsty now, you buy and save for later... my exact same tshirt is better than all the other exact same t-shirts."
Overall, up there in the top 5 most beautiful places I've ever been. Highly recommended if you can withstand the completely insane heat and humidity, crazy bugs, filth, hassle factor, tiny airplanes or 12 hour busrides, and the literal monsoon rains. I must say though, huddling inside a thousand year old temple as the rain and wind beats at the stone is a pretty cozy place to be.
Sunday, July 9, 2006
One or Two Nights in BKK
Sunday, July 09, 2006
Third Night in Bangkok
Jetlag awoke us as the sun rose this morning, and Khao San area was nicely untouristed. though we're staying off KSR properm we're still in the backpacker ghetto. Streets crammed with stalls selling fried bugs and scorpoions, the same bootleg t-shirts, bootleg adidas sneakers, bootleg dvds and even bootleg bestseller books everywhere, crawling with red faced brits and europeans with fake braids in their hair. But this morning, we were awake well before their hungover selves clambered out of bed.
We headed to the docks and hired a longboat to tour the canals, which was a kind of touristy, but ultimately very cool. Incredivble number of houses and wats backing the canals, with people sitting on their teak docks and porches drying their clothes and fishing. The houses looked like you could kick their pilings over and they'd tumble right into the canal, but the people didnt seem to even notice.
From there we visited the Jim Thompson house- an American Antique Collecter / CIA agent / general expat weirdo who had an amazing home on a canal that was assembled from six traditional teakwood houses from all over thailand, and filled with antiquities from all over southeast asia and China. It was somewhat Frank Lloyd Wrightish feeling, or a bit like the Isabella Gardner Museum in Boston.
Onward we took the bizarrely futuristic blade-runner-esque Skyway to Chatuchak Market, sprawling stalls of food and all the bootleg anything your heart could desire. They did have some good silk things and trinkets, so perhaps a stop again on the way out of town in August. And now, off to Siem Reap Cambodia......
Saturday, July 08, 2006
Two Nights in Bangkok
Enter tin can in New York, walking past HSBC advertisements. Exit tin can after 16 sleepless hours in Tokyo, walking past exact same HSBC ads. Its strange that the worldc is so small that the advertising is the same, or perhaps the jetsetters between New York and Tokyo are just the ultimate demographic. By the way, for the record, Japan Airlines kinda blows. And Narita airport is more like the 1970s than the future- frankly, I was a bit disappointed with the small amount of Japanese culture we did encounter.
But Thailand- when we finally arrived after a minor taxi fuckup, is pretty cool. I can very easily see how people would love it, much the same way people love Costa Rica. Its easy, beer costs nothing, people speak English, there are plenty of other Europeans and Americans to party with, and it is a truly beautiful country, in spite of how crowded it is with tourists. The hassle factor is also waaayyyyyy less than Morocco, though everyone is constantly telling you the monuments are closed so that you'll get in their Tuk-tuk and get their tour. But the city is cool- not much different from the typical diesel choked, low lying cement blocks that you see in any third world capital, tangles of electrical wires, the streets crawling with toyota corollas, overstuffed busses belching out black smoke and more motorbikes than seem possible. Not too many American fast food joints, though there does seem to be a 7/11 on every single corner strangely eenough. The traffic is insane- an hour back from the meeting last night, and you can watch the light change and see how much time you are losing because they count down the time on the stoplights. Enough time to turn off your engine, run into the store and still make it out well before green.
So: what have we done....
New Siam Guesthouse is off of Khao San, which makes it moderately more mellow, and is perfectly adequate place to stay- I think a bed of nails would have felt amazing though after twenty something sleepless hours in airplanes. Woke up yesterday, breakfasted across the street of fruit and yogurt, and explored the neighborhood. Took a tuk tuk tour of a few minor temples, and stopped by a tailor to get a suit made for my sister's wedding, which was quite a bargain in gray cashmere, though I spent much of the day stressing about it. Went to Thom Yun Kung for lunch (recommended by rough guide) for incredible roasted duck salad- ingredients, roasted duck, cilantro, mint, scallions, shallots and fried shallots, in a fish/lime sauce. Delicious, and a green curry to go with it.
The afternoon was good- took a water taxi from near our house to Wat Pho, after waiting out th sidden downpour. The taxis pick you up at the dock, and thenzip from stop to stop on the river not unlike a typical cab driver elsewhere, smashing their tails into the dock as everyone from thai children to euro backpackers to elderly monks try to leap onto the boat before it zips off again. Walked from the stop to Wat Pho, an incredible temple / monastery complex with enomous tiled stupas, and the well-known giant reclining buddha statue. It was a very peaceful spot in the center of a very busy city, and really felt removed from the chaos and filth of the third world city. We wandered around, with very few other tourists as it was almost closing, and missed our massage opportunity.
From there we took a tuktuk to downtown to find a meeting, and encountered some memorable traffic, though got to see some amazing streets in what must have been the buddha statue factory district, zipping past rows of shrink wrapped eight-foot golden buddhas, ready to send to... wherever giant golden buddhas statues are sent.
Woke up today, breakfasted at Ricky's Cafe, a surprisingly decent little coffee shop not around the corner, on herb omlets, which were quite tasty, along with some excellent coffee. Water taxi'd over to Wat Pho, where we ignored the men telling us it was closed, and got our massages. Wow, I don't know if I would say I exactly felt relaxed by the massage, so much as beat up. I may well have bruises from the stretching and beating I received ast the handfs of a petite middle aged thai woman who manipulated me into knots with her hands AND FEET to apparently relieve muscular tension and correct the flow of energy in my body. All in all, it was a cool experience, and well worth the few bhat spent. We skipped the pricey palace tour, and lunched at a nearby market on vegetables and incredibly gingery rice. From there we returned to get re-fitted for my suit, and climbed up the Golden Mount, some sort of temple -stupa- phrang thing, that really had an incredible view. Bangkok is incredibly extensive, reaching miles into the distance with half completed skyscrapers, and miles of low cement slum-like buildings, interspersed with the bright orange of the temple and monastery complexes everywhere throughout the city. Had dinner at Hemlock, (yes, a bit of an odd name choice for a restaurant) which was a nice setting, though we ordered poorly a curry and shrimp paste thing.
Third Night in Bangkok
Jetlag awoke us as the sun rose this morning, and Khao San area was nicely untouristed. though we're staying off KSR properm we're still in the backpacker ghetto. Streets crammed with stalls selling fried bugs and scorpoions, the same bootleg t-shirts, bootleg adidas sneakers, bootleg dvds and even bootleg bestseller books everywhere, crawling with red faced brits and europeans with fake braids in their hair. But this morning, we were awake well before their hungover selves clambered out of bed.
We headed to the docks and hired a longboat to tour the canals, which was a kind of touristy, but ultimately very cool. Incredivble number of houses and wats backing the canals, with people sitting on their teak docks and porches drying their clothes and fishing. The houses looked like you could kick their pilings over and they'd tumble right into the canal, but the people didnt seem to even notice.
From there we visited the Jim Thompson house- an American Antique Collecter / CIA agent / general expat weirdo who had an amazing home on a canal that was assembled from six traditional teakwood houses from all over thailand, and filled with antiquities from all over southeast asia and China. It was somewhat Frank Lloyd Wrightish feeling, or a bit like the Isabella Gardner Museum in Boston.
Onward we took the bizarrely futuristic blade-runner-esque Skyway to Chatuchak Market, sprawling stalls of food and all the bootleg anything your heart could desire. They did have some good silk things and trinkets, so perhaps a stop again on the way out of town in August. And now, off to Siem Reap Cambodia......
Saturday, July 08, 2006
Two Nights in Bangkok
Enter tin can in New York, walking past HSBC advertisements. Exit tin can after 16 sleepless hours in Tokyo, walking past exact same HSBC ads. Its strange that the worldc is so small that the advertising is the same, or perhaps the jetsetters between New York and Tokyo are just the ultimate demographic. By the way, for the record, Japan Airlines kinda blows. And Narita airport is more like the 1970s than the future- frankly, I was a bit disappointed with the small amount of Japanese culture we did encounter.
But Thailand- when we finally arrived after a minor taxi fuckup, is pretty cool. I can very easily see how people would love it, much the same way people love Costa Rica. Its easy, beer costs nothing, people speak English, there are plenty of other Europeans and Americans to party with, and it is a truly beautiful country, in spite of how crowded it is with tourists. The hassle factor is also waaayyyyyy less than Morocco, though everyone is constantly telling you the monuments are closed so that you'll get in their Tuk-tuk and get their tour. But the city is cool- not much different from the typical diesel choked, low lying cement blocks that you see in any third world capital, tangles of electrical wires, the streets crawling with toyota corollas, overstuffed busses belching out black smoke and more motorbikes than seem possible. Not too many American fast food joints, though there does seem to be a 7/11 on every single corner strangely eenough. The traffic is insane- an hour back from the meeting last night, and you can watch the light change and see how much time you are losing because they count down the time on the stoplights. Enough time to turn off your engine, run into the store and still make it out well before green.
So: what have we done....
New Siam Guesthouse is off of Khao San, which makes it moderately more mellow, and is perfectly adequate place to stay- I think a bed of nails would have felt amazing though after twenty something sleepless hours in airplanes. Woke up yesterday, breakfasted across the street of fruit and yogurt, and explored the neighborhood. Took a tuk tuk tour of a few minor temples, and stopped by a tailor to get a suit made for my sister's wedding, which was quite a bargain in gray cashmere, though I spent much of the day stressing about it. Went to Thom Yun Kung for lunch (recommended by rough guide) for incredible roasted duck salad- ingredients, roasted duck, cilantro, mint, scallions, shallots and fried shallots, in a fish/lime sauce. Delicious, and a green curry to go with it.
The afternoon was good- took a water taxi from near our house to Wat Pho, after waiting out th sidden downpour. The taxis pick you up at the dock, and thenzip from stop to stop on the river not unlike a typical cab driver elsewhere, smashing their tails into the dock as everyone from thai children to euro backpackers to elderly monks try to leap onto the boat before it zips off again. Walked from the stop to Wat Pho, an incredible temple / monastery complex with enomous tiled stupas, and the well-known giant reclining buddha statue. It was a very peaceful spot in the center of a very busy city, and really felt removed from the chaos and filth of the third world city. We wandered around, with very few other tourists as it was almost closing, and missed our massage opportunity.
From there we took a tuktuk to downtown to find a meeting, and encountered some memorable traffic, though got to see some amazing streets in what must have been the buddha statue factory district, zipping past rows of shrink wrapped eight-foot golden buddhas, ready to send to... wherever giant golden buddhas statues are sent.
Woke up today, breakfasted at Ricky's Cafe, a surprisingly decent little coffee shop not around the corner, on herb omlets, which were quite tasty, along with some excellent coffee. Water taxi'd over to Wat Pho, where we ignored the men telling us it was closed, and got our massages. Wow, I don't know if I would say I exactly felt relaxed by the massage, so much as beat up. I may well have bruises from the stretching and beating I received ast the handfs of a petite middle aged thai woman who manipulated me into knots with her hands AND FEET to apparently relieve muscular tension and correct the flow of energy in my body. All in all, it was a cool experience, and well worth the few bhat spent. We skipped the pricey palace tour, and lunched at a nearby market on vegetables and incredibly gingery rice. From there we returned to get re-fitted for my suit, and climbed up the Golden Mount, some sort of temple -stupa- phrang thing, that really had an incredible view. Bangkok is incredibly extensive, reaching miles into the distance with half completed skyscrapers, and miles of low cement slum-like buildings, interspersed with the bright orange of the temple and monastery complexes everywhere throughout the city. Had dinner at Hemlock, (yes, a bit of an odd name choice for a restaurant) which was a nice setting, though we ordered poorly a curry and shrimp paste thing.
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