Wednesday, August 09, 2006
Back in BKK
Back now in Bangkok to regroup before the Tokyo acid trip. Bangkok suddenly feels homey and comfortable, rather than exotic, foreign and overwhelming as it did when we first arrived. Spent the afternoon finshing errands, buying snacks so we don't starve in Tokyo, and a surprising amount of time on Khao San Road, hippei backpacker hell. Its like Haight-Ashbury, Bourbon Street and Chinatown in a blender, with five dollar tourist flophouses above it. Last chance for anyone to place their orders for "used" backpacks, cheap pharmaceuticals available without prescription and anything bootlegged you could want. Noted a few more errant monks as well getting cash out of the ATM and even smoking cigarettes- none that were pimps, but then we never made it to the red light district. Still the insane "I Love the King" shirts on every third person you walk by, and king posters and billboards everywhere you look. These people seem more royal-crazy than the british tabloids.
Was really ready to get home by the end of Vietnam, but now suddenly sad for the trip to be ending, and ready for a few more adventures. Don't know how much writing I'll be able to do from Tokyo, so look forward to seeing and talking to you all come monday!
Monday, August 07, 2006
Yes, Virginia, Laos is a real country.
Luang Phabang, in the People's Democratic Republic of Laos is nothing short of amazing. We arrived at night, and so didnt see the beauty of the place until daylight the next morning. The former royal capital of Laos, its a town at a bend in the Mekong where the river meets a tributary, making the town itself almost an island, nestled in a valley of jungled mountains and cliffs rising from the rivers. The architecture is a blend of French Colonial, traditional laotian and vietnamese, with a heavy dose of royal architecture as well. There are also dozens of Wats (temples) at least a few on every block of the small town, making it even more beautiful with their flowing red roofs and golden trim. A more gentle flowing architecture than those of thailand. The streets are beautifully lined with small silk shops and stalls selling local laotion wares, and brick paved alleyways cut through wooden houses bursting with flowers, almost all with a view of the quiet mekong against the mountains. Our guesthouse, xieng moung or something, was an old french villa with a lovely porch over a courtyard with tropical birds, hanging orchids and lotus birdbaths. Much classier than our usual flophouses, and not much pricier.
Spent the first day exploring the wats, and town. Everywhere you look are the saffron monk robes out of the corner of your eye, bright against the whitewashed walls of the town. There must be hundreds of monks between all the temples, who are even more noticeable in such a small town. The romantic idea some of us westerners have about the monks is givena reality check here. First, most of the monks appear to be elementary to high school aged, not the college age and older that they are in Thailand and Cambodia. Seems to be like going to catholic school. Constantly see them handling money, eating after noon and breaking various other rules. Even saw a gang of toughs and monks hanging out by a temple entrance at night and trying to sell me ganja!
At the center of town is a small mountain, hill really, which we hiked for sunset views. There are multiple temples, shrines, stupas and statues on the way up, and a large stupa at the top with stunning views of the town, river and region.
Booked a boat with our usually opium-nodding guesthouse attendant to see the pal ou grottoes up the river in the morning. The boat ride was lovely, hardly another boat on the river, and a few hour trip with only the occasional stilt house set on the steep clay banks of the river. Very "Apocalypse Now." The caves are a pair of old grottoes where buddhas and other icons that can no longer be used are stored. You approach from the water, after a half submerged and breaking bamboo dock, where some stairs lead up to the first cave, filled with amazing ancient rotting and rusting buddha figures resting serenely amonst the rocks and stalagmites. The second cave is further up. Wrought iron doors are set into a cliffside, like something out of Tolkien's Middle Earth. Entering the deeper cave you need a flashlight to explore the depths, viewing a statue here, a sculpture there in the eerie sliver of artificial light. Very spooky, very cool, really felt like an Indiana Jones movie, and I'll leave the multiple pop-culture and film references at that.
Came back to explore the night market a bit, silk and t-shirts the name of the game mostly, though I did find an old book of the dhamapada written on palm leaves and a legit antique. More shopping opportunities again than we planned, though we were a bit better restrained this time. They have great t-shirts, and seem to put their kids to work selling and weaving like its nothing- guess that explains the child labor issues in other parts of the world- they're just already culturally used to it, used to and expected to help out the family by working. The laos people also do a funny thing where they tap all the goods at their stall with the money after you buy something for good luck. Money is a pain, as the largest bill here is 2000 kip, or 2$, which makes you feel like a real big shot when you change 80$ or so at the bank.
Following day spent the morning exploring the local market, which was less interesting than we had hoped, mostly just cheap chinese knockoffs and fly-ridden meats, with the occasional person trying to pull aside aside to covertly offer opium to us. (We are at the bottom tip of the notorious golden triangle, and Laos the third biggest opium producing country in the world.) Afternoon we crossed the river to explore some abandoned wats, with monks occasionally letting us into the temples they were guarding for a minor bribe. Some are alleged to be haunted, and the locals steer clear, and they were very nicely untouristed and quite serene in their isolation and crumbling glory. The villages were also quiet and pleasant to explore, a few bird-flu chickens running around and children playing bocce, or the local variant- flip-flocce, a term coined genuisly by Olivia. Couldnt really explore much off-road here in Laos, due to all the unexploded bombs, but some damn good stuff to see in the mostly abandoned temples and streets. A pleasant walk home down the ancient streets with the sounds of monks chanting to accompany our stroll to the guesthouse.
Currently reading :
Shogun
By James Clavell
Saturday, August 05, 2006
Falang-A-Lang-A-Lang
Vientiane...
We abandoned our few pennies of vietnamese money at the airport in a box in Hanoi marked "Charity for extremely difficult children" which seemed like a worthy cause, if not the most impressive use of english. Anyway, the flight into Laos was beautiful, Soviet turboprop "airplane" aside, and I imagined the years of bombers wreaking havoc on the countryside with the same view I had form the plane. Laos is the most heavily bombed country in the world, with more bombs dropped in the 1960's that on all of europe combined in WWII. It also seems to have a history of being a backwater that is just taken over by other powers. Well, they beat the US and now have their own People's Democratic Republic, and its a pretty damn nice little country, and I do mean little. The Vientiane (capital city) airport was smaller than the Providence Airport- smaller than the Providence bus station even. I was expecting a mini Phnom Penh, and we got a pleasant, if more boring surprise with a quiet little place at a bend on the Mekong. The city seems to be one grand French boulevard, with a mini arc de triomphe, and then off of the boulevard are literally are dirt roads. Strangely, unlike every other country, there are actually stoplights. Its also a bit like walking right into 1975- ancient toyotas and datsuns abound, a few vw bugs and even a few out of place old Ford Galaxies. Occasionally you see a new toyota land cruiser (3rd world beaurocrats favorite car) or new pickup truck that belongs to an NGO.
Had a great lunch next to the Mekong, looking out over Thailand across the river as we ate some papaya salad and succulently sweet ribs that were cooked on a pit next to us by a lao family. Dinner was a wonderful french restaurant, and our most expensive meal to date as we ate $5 steak au herbes de provence, and a pizza that actually tasted like pizza. The chocolate mousse wasnt bad either. Next day we had a prix-fixe lunch of western food at another good french place before we left town. The city itself was tiny, and it took no time at all on our rented bicycles to see the sights, and visit the Wats (temples) which truly were beautiful, especially after the Vietnamese Pagodas which were much less interesting architecturally. Anyway, Vientiane was tiny, and amazing to think of the place overrun with spies in the 70's, you would need about two spies to overrun the place as it was pretty obvious who was not a local. How wonderful to be in a quiet place after Vietnam, where you couldnt even walk down the street or sidewalk because it was so crowded with motos and people. Hadnt realized how stressful and claustrophobic the crowds and culture Vietnam had become after a few weeks until we arrived in Laos.
Thursday, August 10, 2006
Friday, August 4, 2006
NVA Irregular
Craven "A"
This is actually the brand name of the cigarettes in Vietnam. Tempting, isnt it? Anyway, here are a few disjointed, rambling observations about Vietnamese culture...
The culture, in spite of all the english speaking and fancier cell phones than we have, is still very foreign. The women wash the restaurant dishes in the streets and tend the shops and hotels while the men tinker with their motorbikes and occasionally do real work. The men also have inch long thumb and pinkie nails, for what purpose I have no idea. Women also seem to be always doing some strange calisthenics in the insanely -topiaried parks at night (the regulated economy gotta employ everybody here), while the men play badminton constantly on any street or sidewalk they can find. The men and women also seem never to interact, and the women seem to work, so the men can "study" though they are mostly seen lounging around on their motos. I even see them sleep on the motos! Women actually wear the conical straw hats, and here in Hanoi anyway, the men all wear green pith helmets to complement their various bootlegged designer gear (plyboy, abercrombie and finch, crocodile, etc. My personal favorite are the items like backpacks that are both nike AND north face). Everyone actually spends their time squatting, even the infants seem to learn how to squat before they can stand or walk. We also must be near a bag factory because everywhere you look there are Ikea bags, and I have yet to see any ikea furniture anywhere. The buddhism is less apparent than in Thailand and Cambodia, almost no monks, though I did see a few- one even wearing the brown robes and wool hat that is recognizable in well-known monks like Thich Nhat Hanh. They practice Mahayana, not Theravada Buddhism, which might just be more subtle outwardly than the wear it on their sleeve religiousity of the other countries, though they still all have shrines inside their houses. Apparently all the religions, Catholic, Muslim, Cao Dai and Buddhist here engage in ancestor worship of some sort which I dont fully understand.
And the toilets are certainly foreign, often just the squat hole, with no paper and just a bucket and ladle beside it. The more modern ones might have a hose, and thankfully most hotels we've stayed in offer western style toilets and paper to accompany them. Haggling over prices is nonstop, fun at first then tiring- probably for the locals as well as us foreigners. The moto thing is also insane- Hanoi is a city of 3 million people and 4 million motos, which is odd considering that they carry anything on them, giant sacks of rice, piles of bricks, twenty foot lengths of gutter pipe and up to six people families, the kids just clamber on like its nothing. Oh, and while talking on their cell phones. Certainly none of our fear, and they are well trained not to burn themselves on the exhaust, unlike almost every westerner here who has a telltale bandage on their right ankle.
I think I've done a decent job describing the food- generally phenomenal, and extremely fresh ingredients, herbs not spices, etc. though I havent described the coffee, which is also delicious when not too sweet. They deliver to your table a small cup with a tablesppon or two of condensed milk in the bottom, and then an aluminum contraption that drips an espresso-like (and sized) viscous and very strong coffee into the milk. Stir it up and you've got vietnamese coffee, and perhaps pour it over ice and its incredible. I suppose its basically the same as thai iced coffee, but here it only costs a quarter. (coffee-with-cream color incidentally, is the exact color of the mekong river) Advice to travellers getting sick of Asian food- every attempt at western food we've encountered has generally sucked (with the exception of french), but the two indian meals we've had have been excellent. And the french food- pastries in particular, have been improving the further north we get in Vietnam and helping us regain some of the weight we lost in Cambodia. The food is better in the south though, and seems to always be best in the dirtier resturants, preferably those with plastic lawn chairs, metal tables and dozens of vietnamese sitting around smoking.
Most people in the south seem surprisingly friendly towards americans, and all have impressive English language skills. Both tour tour guide and one hotel owner were translaters for americans during the war, and very open to talk about the war, their expereinces and how much they missed their american friends. Amazing considering they also spent years in reeducation camps following the fall of Saigon, which they described in surprisingly matter-of-fact terms. The people still drive american (in the south) and soviet (in the north) jeeps and trucks around, we even saw a crane that said "US Army" on it constructing a building on the side of the road. They, like everyone else we meet, are constantly remarking on how thin we are for americans. Some utch we met actually asked us if we had trouble buying clothes in America because all americans are so fat.
Our last day in Hanoi we tried to go see Uncle Ho's embalmed corpse laying in state, but unfortunately he was not taking visitors after eleven AM, so we'll just have to return to see him again some other time. Wandered around in the sweltering heat for a while lost, found a nice park full of vietnamese couples getting their wedding photos taken, and took it easy for the rest of the afternoon. Did have a decent lunch near the military museum, and an excellent dinner. We ate at "fried fish" where the menu is "friend fish" and nothing else- but a charcoal brazier is brought to your table with burning embers a bit too close to my face, and sizzling oil frying up, well, pieces of fish. They dump some dill in and then you mix it up with an assortmnent of noodles, shallots, peanuts, mint and a few other garnishes they leave you. Thankfully, it was another instance of plastic chairs and mostly vietnamese people eating there, and they were real experts at their one dish.
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Hanoi - Ha Long Bay
We made the decision to save money and overnight bus up to Hanoi, which was supposed to take 12-14 hours, and took about 18 or 20. The busride from hell was wretchedly uncomfortable, and then stopped for hours in the middle of the night with no explanation for the first two of the hours, until we finally heard that a train had crashed, the upside of which was we hadnt taken the train because it was sold out. Still, it was highly unpleasant and uncomfortable voyage to Hanoi. They also shut the bus and AC off in the night, leaving us to the mercy of jungle heat and bugs. At least no one was shooting americans like they were thirty years ago. Our drivers were also about 15 years old, and though I was relieved to see them chugging red bulls at dinner, I cant say I wasnt a bit disturbed to see them drinking Saigon Lager with the same relish as they finished up their meals.
No matter, we made it to Hanoi in one piece physically if not mentally. Hanoi itself is truly charming, unlike Saigon or Phnom Penh. The streets are narrow and cute, there are lakes everywhere, the French quarter actually feels charming and French. We did an extensive amount of walking until a crazy monsoon struck, around the old quarter where the same shops have made and sold the same goods for five hundred years. We also saw a water puppet performance, which was a lot more impressive than I expected, though they obviously did not get the memo about not lighting fireworks inside crowded theaters. I suppose it was a water stage but still.
Yesterday we took a tour out to Ha Long bay, which is the bay of giant crazy islands that probably comes to your mind when you think of "asia" and "ocean". The trip out was beautiful, more rice paddies which I am obsessed with taking the perfect picture of, and dozens of garment factories sprouting of them along with giant limestone outcroppings. Ha Long is another place, much like Angkor, that words cant do justice to. Giant solid rock islands coming out of the fog, floating fishing villages, kayaking through limestone caves with blue water, incredible sunsets, everything you could imagine. Our boat, though beautiful old teak Sampan with red sails, had miserable food and rather cramped sleeping quarters that we shared with rats and roaches. (Although I kept my obersations from Olivia until this morning) Sometimes "adventure" is great when youre travelling, other times you remember that "adventure" and "off the beaten path" means rats, terrible food, stomach ailments, bugbites the size of eggs, etc. But- it was beautiful and I can bore you to tears with all those pictures later.
Same-Same But Different
We got onto thereunification express train to Hue, which was utterly filthy. I noticed the people in front of us were just spitting their watermelon seeds onto the floor. A few minutes later, everyone was throwing their garbage onto the floor, and we realized that they just hurled their trash on the floor, and soon someone came to sweep it all up. Not exactly up, because they then just swept it out the door of the moving train.
Hue itself was a bit of a disappointment. The imperial city is certainly grand- Vietnam being a more chinese culture, the emperors who ruled from Hue for hundreds of years built a miniature version of the chinese forbidden city here, and left behind enormous mausoleums as well. The city has multiple concentric walls and incredible moats of lotus blossoms, yet sadly much of the city was destroyed during the tet offensive in 1968 when it was occupied by the VC and pounded with american artillery. There are still bulletholes in the ancient ramparts, and I even found a rusted bullet shell laying on the ground. Thankfully, there is some rebuilding effort underway, but the whole thing was almost completely razed by warfare. We ate lunch at a restaurant run by deaf mute family, another amusing effect of tourism on these types of economies is that as soon as lonely planet or someone writes up a place, all the other places on the street take the same name and menu. This place went as far as a block of restaurants with all the employees pretending to be deaf-mutes.
Currently reading :
The Honourable Schoolboy
By John le Carre
This is actually the brand name of the cigarettes in Vietnam. Tempting, isnt it? Anyway, here are a few disjointed, rambling observations about Vietnamese culture...
The culture, in spite of all the english speaking and fancier cell phones than we have, is still very foreign. The women wash the restaurant dishes in the streets and tend the shops and hotels while the men tinker with their motorbikes and occasionally do real work. The men also have inch long thumb and pinkie nails, for what purpose I have no idea. Women also seem to be always doing some strange calisthenics in the insanely -topiaried parks at night (the regulated economy gotta employ everybody here), while the men play badminton constantly on any street or sidewalk they can find. The men and women also seem never to interact, and the women seem to work, so the men can "study" though they are mostly seen lounging around on their motos. I even see them sleep on the motos! Women actually wear the conical straw hats, and here in Hanoi anyway, the men all wear green pith helmets to complement their various bootlegged designer gear (plyboy, abercrombie and finch, crocodile, etc. My personal favorite are the items like backpacks that are both nike AND north face). Everyone actually spends their time squatting, even the infants seem to learn how to squat before they can stand or walk. We also must be near a bag factory because everywhere you look there are Ikea bags, and I have yet to see any ikea furniture anywhere. The buddhism is less apparent than in Thailand and Cambodia, almost no monks, though I did see a few- one even wearing the brown robes and wool hat that is recognizable in well-known monks like Thich Nhat Hanh. They practice Mahayana, not Theravada Buddhism, which might just be more subtle outwardly than the wear it on their sleeve religiousity of the other countries, though they still all have shrines inside their houses. Apparently all the religions, Catholic, Muslim, Cao Dai and Buddhist here engage in ancestor worship of some sort which I dont fully understand.
And the toilets are certainly foreign, often just the squat hole, with no paper and just a bucket and ladle beside it. The more modern ones might have a hose, and thankfully most hotels we've stayed in offer western style toilets and paper to accompany them. Haggling over prices is nonstop, fun at first then tiring- probably for the locals as well as us foreigners. The moto thing is also insane- Hanoi is a city of 3 million people and 4 million motos, which is odd considering that they carry anything on them, giant sacks of rice, piles of bricks, twenty foot lengths of gutter pipe and up to six people families, the kids just clamber on like its nothing. Oh, and while talking on their cell phones. Certainly none of our fear, and they are well trained not to burn themselves on the exhaust, unlike almost every westerner here who has a telltale bandage on their right ankle.
I think I've done a decent job describing the food- generally phenomenal, and extremely fresh ingredients, herbs not spices, etc. though I havent described the coffee, which is also delicious when not too sweet. They deliver to your table a small cup with a tablesppon or two of condensed milk in the bottom, and then an aluminum contraption that drips an espresso-like (and sized) viscous and very strong coffee into the milk. Stir it up and you've got vietnamese coffee, and perhaps pour it over ice and its incredible. I suppose its basically the same as thai iced coffee, but here it only costs a quarter. (coffee-with-cream color incidentally, is the exact color of the mekong river) Advice to travellers getting sick of Asian food- every attempt at western food we've encountered has generally sucked (with the exception of french), but the two indian meals we've had have been excellent. And the french food- pastries in particular, have been improving the further north we get in Vietnam and helping us regain some of the weight we lost in Cambodia. The food is better in the south though, and seems to always be best in the dirtier resturants, preferably those with plastic lawn chairs, metal tables and dozens of vietnamese sitting around smoking.
Most people in the south seem surprisingly friendly towards americans, and all have impressive English language skills. Both tour tour guide and one hotel owner were translaters for americans during the war, and very open to talk about the war, their expereinces and how much they missed their american friends. Amazing considering they also spent years in reeducation camps following the fall of Saigon, which they described in surprisingly matter-of-fact terms. The people still drive american (in the south) and soviet (in the north) jeeps and trucks around, we even saw a crane that said "US Army" on it constructing a building on the side of the road. They, like everyone else we meet, are constantly remarking on how thin we are for americans. Some utch we met actually asked us if we had trouble buying clothes in America because all americans are so fat.
Our last day in Hanoi we tried to go see Uncle Ho's embalmed corpse laying in state, but unfortunately he was not taking visitors after eleven AM, so we'll just have to return to see him again some other time. Wandered around in the sweltering heat for a while lost, found a nice park full of vietnamese couples getting their wedding photos taken, and took it easy for the rest of the afternoon. Did have a decent lunch near the military museum, and an excellent dinner. We ate at "fried fish" where the menu is "friend fish" and nothing else- but a charcoal brazier is brought to your table with burning embers a bit too close to my face, and sizzling oil frying up, well, pieces of fish. They dump some dill in and then you mix it up with an assortmnent of noodles, shallots, peanuts, mint and a few other garnishes they leave you. Thankfully, it was another instance of plastic chairs and mostly vietnamese people eating there, and they were real experts at their one dish.
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Hanoi - Ha Long Bay
We made the decision to save money and overnight bus up to Hanoi, which was supposed to take 12-14 hours, and took about 18 or 20. The busride from hell was wretchedly uncomfortable, and then stopped for hours in the middle of the night with no explanation for the first two of the hours, until we finally heard that a train had crashed, the upside of which was we hadnt taken the train because it was sold out. Still, it was highly unpleasant and uncomfortable voyage to Hanoi. They also shut the bus and AC off in the night, leaving us to the mercy of jungle heat and bugs. At least no one was shooting americans like they were thirty years ago. Our drivers were also about 15 years old, and though I was relieved to see them chugging red bulls at dinner, I cant say I wasnt a bit disturbed to see them drinking Saigon Lager with the same relish as they finished up their meals.
No matter, we made it to Hanoi in one piece physically if not mentally. Hanoi itself is truly charming, unlike Saigon or Phnom Penh. The streets are narrow and cute, there are lakes everywhere, the French quarter actually feels charming and French. We did an extensive amount of walking until a crazy monsoon struck, around the old quarter where the same shops have made and sold the same goods for five hundred years. We also saw a water puppet performance, which was a lot more impressive than I expected, though they obviously did not get the memo about not lighting fireworks inside crowded theaters. I suppose it was a water stage but still.
Yesterday we took a tour out to Ha Long bay, which is the bay of giant crazy islands that probably comes to your mind when you think of "asia" and "ocean". The trip out was beautiful, more rice paddies which I am obsessed with taking the perfect picture of, and dozens of garment factories sprouting of them along with giant limestone outcroppings. Ha Long is another place, much like Angkor, that words cant do justice to. Giant solid rock islands coming out of the fog, floating fishing villages, kayaking through limestone caves with blue water, incredible sunsets, everything you could imagine. Our boat, though beautiful old teak Sampan with red sails, had miserable food and rather cramped sleeping quarters that we shared with rats and roaches. (Although I kept my obersations from Olivia until this morning) Sometimes "adventure" is great when youre travelling, other times you remember that "adventure" and "off the beaten path" means rats, terrible food, stomach ailments, bugbites the size of eggs, etc. But- it was beautiful and I can bore you to tears with all those pictures later.
Same-Same But Different
We got onto thereunification express train to Hue, which was utterly filthy. I noticed the people in front of us were just spitting their watermelon seeds onto the floor. A few minutes later, everyone was throwing their garbage onto the floor, and we realized that they just hurled their trash on the floor, and soon someone came to sweep it all up. Not exactly up, because they then just swept it out the door of the moving train.
Hue itself was a bit of a disappointment. The imperial city is certainly grand- Vietnam being a more chinese culture, the emperors who ruled from Hue for hundreds of years built a miniature version of the chinese forbidden city here, and left behind enormous mausoleums as well. The city has multiple concentric walls and incredible moats of lotus blossoms, yet sadly much of the city was destroyed during the tet offensive in 1968 when it was occupied by the VC and pounded with american artillery. There are still bulletholes in the ancient ramparts, and I even found a rusted bullet shell laying on the ground. Thankfully, there is some rebuilding effort underway, but the whole thing was almost completely razed by warfare. We ate lunch at a restaurant run by deaf mute family, another amusing effect of tourism on these types of economies is that as soon as lonely planet or someone writes up a place, all the other places on the street take the same name and menu. This place went as far as a block of restaurants with all the employees pretending to be deaf-mutes.
Currently reading :
The Honourable Schoolboy
By John le Carre
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