Oz-Blog

Sunday, March 18, 2007

Happy Trails

Well, that's it. We're safe at home from our two-year exodus, with burritos in our bellies and magic in our hearts. After 235 posts, Oz-blog is no more. Thank you for putting up with all the crappy punctuation, grammar and misspelling. Thanks to all of the authors, commentors and readers who helped make this blog a success. Hope to see you all soon and share many more stories yet to come.

Friday, March 16, 2007

Sigh, Yawn.

Saigon! The city so nice, they named it twice. Ho Chi Minh City, as labeled only by public officials and postmen, is honking, sprawling, madness of a town. Unfortunately, we've been through more than a few of those already this trip and they all tend to blend together after a month of traveling. We're tired. Tired of trudging around town, fending off touts, tired of breathing dust and exhaust, tired of dodging scooters left and right. Sorry Saigon, you got the short end of the stick. I'm sure if we had come here first, all of your history and culture would have been novel.

Walking around last night, a few things stood out. Gosh, everything is double the price from last week and man, there are a lot of hookers. I don't know if thinking 'man, there are a lot of hookers' is something that they can reprint on their tourist brochure, but it probably isn't an aspect to hang your hat on. In all honesty, it could have been my misunderstanding of how friendly the heavily made-up and scantily-clad young women sitting outside of bar / discos were acting. Take Philly, the city of 'brotherly love'... perhaps first-timers there think that it is a gay mecca. One just gets the sense that the integration / exploitation of middle aged American men with the Vietnamese is much more ingrained here. I didn't get the same vibe from Hanoi. There are many bars by the big hotels that look straight from outta the movies, with bad lighting and young women keeping shop, waiting to console their sullen G.I.s, just back from tour and missing their girls back home. Think Paris Hilton, as opposed to Hanoi Hilton. Hanoi had a sense of class that Saigon lacks. Saigon seems to be more brazen, aggressive, sluttier.

There are no young children anywhere to be found in Saigon this week, for fear that Angelina Jolie is going to come and kidnap them. It is like when King Herod wreaking havoc, killing young children all across the land in attempts to vanquish Jesus. We've found that in every third-world country we've visited. Mitsubishi even has a brand of people mover named the Jolie (pictured), with enough cargo space to store a half-dozen orphans. Every mother, every young child fears abduction by Angelina Jolie. They usually run screaming at the sight of a brunette American woman (like Peggy) approaching them on the street. One woman did a total double take when standing next to us on the corner. Maybe we will see Angelina and B-rad on the flight home tonight... how much do you think we could get for a first-born Canadian / American baby?

Today also marks the 39th anniversary of the My Lai massacre, which happened up the coast near the town of Hoi An, where we just were. As such, this afternoon we visited the American War Crimes museum, recently renamed the more approachable War Renimants Museum. It was a very humble but powerful chronology of the effects of all the bombing, battles, chemicals and destruction. Much was made of the international protesting (at the time) against U.S. military action here. It was certainly worth a look around and very appropriate given the date as well as current events.

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Text Message

In both Vietnam and Cambodia, there have been many a vendor selling bootleg literature in the street and at storefronts. These books are sometimes absurdly poor replicas of the originals, essentially photocopied contents with a glossy cover. They look like the readers that we used to use in college, the ones that were copied from my roomate's friends, who copied theirs from someone in their glee club, who copied theirs from their pot dealer. Yet, for $4 a piece, the price is certainly right. Often there are many translations available, for the bevvy of languages that come through these countries are those of the foriegners. What is more interesting, however, is the nature of these books. Yes, you've got the requisite travel bibles of the Rough Guide and Lonely Planet, both instructing people to places neither rough nor certainly not lonely (to paraphrase Alex Garland).

The majority of the books being offered deal with recollection of recent conflicts of the 1970s, both internally and domestically. These are often done in the first person, a more telling narrative of the population themselves. Peggy and I were lucky enough to have read a few of the essential texts before leaving Sydney, but have picked up several more titles each since being here in Asia. The bottoms of our backpacks are starting to become mobile book depositories. I wonder if this relaxation on copyright might be a benefit to a society such as U.S. or Australia? Although the localized languages are not available in the case of Cambodia or Vietnam, having definitive historical texts publically recognizable and reasonably aquirable must be a positive thing. These books are generally (and rightfully, in my opinon) biased towards the viewpoint that atrocities of the past have occured. None reveal the hawkish view, nor extoll virtues of the new (or disposed of) regimes. That's not what tourists want to read.

So, a proposed loophole in copyrights for books are important for a nation to understand its' history and heritage If street vendors around places like Pier 39 sold bootleg copies of say, Red Badge of Courage, Uncle Tom's Cabin or Grapes of Wrath, would this not raise awareness of these book's importance locally as well as providing outsiders a glimpse of American history? It certainly would paint a more accurate and poignant picture than the exposure the U.S. gets from what Hollywood movies portray. Further, rather than selling imitation aboriginal t-shirts and digeridoos (made in China) by the Opera House, wouldn't bootleg copies of A Fatal Shore give more of definition of what Australia has been built on. The governments could classify these books as 'National Historic Texts' and suppliment the publishers with lost revenue from the illicit copies.

Counterpoint being that having street vendors sell poor replicas of literature alongside pirated DVDs of Rocky Balboa and Borat might cheapen their message by association alone. Interestingly, in Thailand there was plenty of pirated DVDs, but no books, as the Kingdom of Smiles went through the 70s relatively unscathed and everybody is hunky dory with situation under the current monarch.

Monday, March 12, 2007

Sweat. Shopping.

Hoi An! Old town, tiny streets, ancient charm. Warm climate. A tiny town containing over 200 tailor shops. A long time ago, Hoi An was a silk trade port into and out of China. Over the years, the town has become known worldwide in their knack for producing quality clothing out of such traditional fabrics as silk, rayon and polyester. Nearly every storefront has dresses, shoes and suits, sometimes displaying fashions that are woefully out of date. Heavy overcoats that would never be able to be worn in such tropical climates are apparently very popular.

Heading into the stores, two or three women follow you around asking what you're looking for. Clumsy shoppers such as us, really aren't sure and usually want to see a catalogue. You then spend fifteen or twenty minutes piling through binders, looking at waif models on the Milan runways wearing the most god awful heroin-chic outfits, completely impractical or wearable anyplace save certain sections of Fresno. I've posted a picture of the outfit Peggy has had made for her first week back at work.

We've gotten the sense that there is a pool of tailors that are for contract hire from the storefronts. When a buyer is ready to commit to being measured, the sales lady gets on the horn and five minutes later a guy arrives by motor scooter to measure you up. Just as quickly as he arrives, said measure man hops on his scooter and rides off into the night. Same thing with the shoes. A phone call is made, the appropriate freelancer smelling of cigarettes arrives a short time later, traces your foot and measures your arches and zips off with the sample of cloth or shoe style. One or two days later, you show up for an adjustment session.

There are also the single-family tailors that do the work in the kitchen or living room of their house, with the storefront being curbside. These are a bit more hit-and-miss, in that you're not sure whether the family is up to par, or that they have the equipment / textiles able to complete the task. Yet, one feels better knowing that they had dealt directly with the producer, as opposed to the random measure men going off to parts unknown.

At the adjustment session, it is an extremely thorough process. At one point in getting a suit made, I had five people tugging and pinching at me, all muttering comments about how it all was hanging. You feel like a super model, full of pins and instructed by onlookers. At the larger places, the adjustments are made upstairs, as the sales ladies get on a microphone / PA system and call for one of the eight-year olds with bleeding fingers to make a nip here or a tuck there on a pant leg or dress hem. Truthfully, we've watched as a shift change has taken place from the 'attic of despair', only to see happy teenagers laughing and joking on their way out. No bleeding fingers to be found.

Tomorrow we're taking a break from our Capitalistic Vanity to explore the My Son sanctuary by boat tour. We'll be hiking around ancient ruins and seeing decrepit temples. Seems like every couple of days, we've been hiking around ancient ruins and seeing decrepit temples. Better than sitting in traffic and seeing decrepit freeways.

Sunday, March 11, 2007

Hue. Ho. Let's Go!

We're about to head South from Hue, past Da Nang and onto Hoi An. Our brief but enjoyable time in Hue has been very different from Hanoi. Hue has a very rich history, being the former capital of Vietnam and home to the emperors and dynastic rulers of the land before the Communists took power. Hue was also the site of the Tet Offensive, forty years ago last month. When the VC held the city for 25 days, General Westmoreland bombed the crap out of the place, barely making a dent in the ancient stone temples and citadels that have stood for centuries before.

We spent the day going around to the temples and ancient palaces, even adjourning some costumes and posing for cheesy pictures as the terrorsome husband and wife emporer / empress from the 15th century. We ruled the land with an iron fist. We visited a Buddhist pagoda, still in operation today. Many monks and intellectuals were killed when the VC held the city, causing some buddhists to set fire to themselves in protest.

That afternoon, we spent $1 to catch the Huda Hue versus Da Nang soccer match at the local stadium. I tell you, Huda Hue is going all the way this year. Huda, the team sponsor is a mishmash of the words Hue and Da, or Denmark. Brewed in the Danish style, the beer is particularly hoppy (in my taste) and not my favorite. The soccer team isn't much better, drawing Da Nang to a 0-0 tie. The best part of the game were the men's urinals, which the wall connecting two sections of the stands. I didn't get to find out where the women's restroom was, could have been the same wall.

Saturday, March 10, 2007

Haaaaaallllooooooooo!

Part-taunt. Part-greeting. Part-sales pitch. You hear this "Haaaalllooo" from everywhere, passing scooters, out of the windows of buildings, from automobiles, from young childeren, street vendors. Everywhere. I would like to think that Peggy and I are being proactive of walking everywhere we can, but have started to grow weary of people yelling at us.

It is a way of calling out, 'Foreigner' and letting people know you're different. Back home in California, we don't go around yelling "Neeeeee Hoooooooooow" to every Chinese person, nor "Whaaaaaaaaasuppppp" to every black guy I see. Here in Vietnam, I know I stick out, why accentuate it? And why "Haallllooo"? Why not "Goooootentaaag", perhaps "Booooonjooooor", or even a "G'Daaaaaaay"? How do they know we are Americans, is it the straightened teeth and fancy sneakers? Perhaps the look of heightened imperialism gleaming in our eye?

The conversations that we do have with people who've managed to get themselves past the "Hello" part have been great. The follow up questions are usually "Where are you from", or, "What is your name". We like asking people what they did for the Tet celebrations, which usually involve answers relating to both family and sticky rice recipes. It is just the a-holes who yell "Haaaaalllloooo" at us, then turn to their friends snickering like they really got one over on these newbies. Love your country, really, but let's keep this party polite.

Woof! There It Is

My friends, it is a dog eat dog world and someones gotta serve it. The Vietnamese have been known for their culinary love of man's best friend, mistaking dog for being man's best entree. In colder months, both the Vietnamese as well as the Koreans chow down on old rufus believing that eating dog generates an unusual amount of body heat to help keep warm. I generally use a blanket to keep warm, but who am I to judge?

We are stating now that we will NOT eat dog unless it is a shade-grown, grass-fed, single origin, organically produced canine. Until then, pooches is strictly off the menu. This, of course, unless a restaurant offers those delectable little Daschund wiener dogs, they have always looked so delicious, the way they wiggle to and fro. They'd be really good with some mustard and sauerkraut, maybe have some chocolate lab for desert?

Thursday, March 08, 2007

Three Eight

Happy International Women's Day! The eighth of March is celebrating women everywhere, and really, where would we be without women? The Chinese and Vietnamese have a saying, that either a man or a woman is 'three-eight'. In the man's case, it means his woman keeps him on a really short leash. In the woman's case, it means she is a bitch. Just thought I'd share that. School girls all around Hanoi have roses and other trinkets given to them by their scooter driving boyfriends. The plush animal district, which we passed by on the bus, is doing a brisk business today, nearly stopping the flow of traffic from all of the diverted scooters of romantics.

For Peggy's present, we took the bus to the Ethenology Museum and went out to lunch afterwards. The museum itself was interesting enough, chronicling all of the different ethnic minorities in the region. The bus ride, however, was a good slice of Hanoi. Turns out the buses here don't stop, just slow down. In order to catch one, you literally have to 'catch' one, running along side of it as the driver opens the doors. We watched as a disembarking elderly couple didn't jump off fast enough, the husband getting his pant leg caught in the door, while the wife never made it off the bus. After some angry words and very agile hopping by the husband, everything was OK. Your bus ticket also includes some complimentary propaganda music pumped over the loudspeaker, hearalding the virtues of raising pigs or farming rice.

Lunch was an experience as well. We went to a beer garden type of place next to the museum and got a little more than we bargained for. Sitting down, Peggy pointed at the table next to us, who were eating a 'hot pot' type of dish amongst the twelve of them, saying we'd like one of those. The waiter got a bit flustered and found a back-up, who also got an additional person to confirm that this was, in fact, what we ordered. You know that there is a problem when you have to order the same thing to three separate people. They first brought out a chicken chopped up into chunks, head, feet and all, staring at us blankly. I told Peggy that this was her Three Eight gift. The staff kept bringing out ingredients for this hot pot, culminating to a feast could have fed the entire restaraunt, dozens of people.

We sheepishly prepared our chicken and additives under the constant gaze of about a dozen people. They must have just wanted to see if two human beings could possible consume that amount of food in one sitting. I've never been to a 'if you can eat it, the meal is free' type of resaraunt, but it was this kind of spectacle. We felt a bit embarassed when we tried to pay without leaving so much as of a dent in our boiling chicken medley.

Halong Must We Sing this Song?

Ahoy from the deck of the "Jewel of the Bay", our faux junk boat enscripted to take us on our overnight to Halong Bay. The boat terminal is chock-a-block (crowded) with boats identical to our own. Well over one hundred, my nautical eyeball tells me, all looking quite similar to one another. Average capacity maybe fifteen or twenty people and the variety of trips lasting from one night to one week. Our boat guide tells us that Vietnam only started offering overnight trips on the Bay five years ago. making this slice of the domestic tourism industry a recent but very successful one.

The weather is a sleepy mist, enveloping the Bay with a grey haze. It is among the only real percipitation we've seen this trip. We've done a hike to the cave inside one of the rock outcroppings, which was a bit underwhelming. There are too many people crowding around and taking pictures, making one feel as if it is a cattle car instead of a geological wonder. Viet, our apropriately named guide, has got a future in public speaking. He tends to drone on and on for twenty minutes or so at every turn of the path, all done in somewhat shakey English. The Vietnamese consevators have labeled various stalactites and stalagmites to resemble dragons, turtles, men, women and their respective body parts. The male version of the latter was tastefully illuminated with a pulsing red light, attempting to provide a climactic end to any carefree cave romp.

We've been told that for lunch we will be having an eight course menu, and for dinner an eleven course menu. I hope that the quality will be as emphasized as the quantity. I think we're just a bit travel weary at this point, looking forward to returning to the familiar comforts of home. Although very pretty, the Halong Bay experience is somewhat dampered by the poor weather and our own jaded mindset. Perhaps it is just because I am under the weather, tomorrow looks to pick up.

I've randomly run into the third person I've known, the second girl from the same ad agency in Sydney. The first one I sat next to in a cybercafe in Cambodia, the second I met at a bus stop in Hanoi. For us, travelling requires a fine balance between seeing enough Western faces to give you a sense of comfort; that you are neither encroaching nor completely lost. This, in contrast to being on the mainstream tourist track with every Tom, Dick and Harry who can figure out how to book a package tour.

Monday, March 05, 2007

Red Asphalt

Ba Ca was a whirlwind of activity. We photographed, haggled, slurped soup and did shots of villager distilled corn whiskey; all before noon. On our way back to the train station, our driver of the Ruski jeep speed his way daftly down the mountain. We came a across a back up of cars, proceeding to cut ahead of three minibuses to angle ourselves for a better look at the commotion. It turns out there was a head-on scooter collision, with both bikes left in a mangled mess in the middle of the road. Thankfully, no visible injuries or wounded as we came on the scene. Just to paint the picture a bit further, this is very rural Vietnam, people were squatting on the hillsides to watch, chickens walking to and fro, rice paddies being paddied by women in triangular hats in the background. A farming road at best, running its way through villages. So, it struck me as odd that a guy was drawing a rudimentary line in red paint around the silhouette of one of the smashed scooters. We've confirmed before that there is no insurance here for scooter or tuk tuk, only automobiles. I dunno, it just looked a bit humorous, as if he was being very official in detailing the murder of his fallen steed.

Once the road cleared, our jeep driver tried to edge his way around the asphalt gravel truck in front of us. For those of you familiar with asphalt gravel trucks, they are quite heavy industrial vehicles, the tires being huge and the payload and body of the truck high off the ground. Our driver, trying to avoid the ditch on our left, accelerated the right side of the jeep into the back of this massive vehicle. The impact shattered the right half of the windshield, sending shards of glass into the cab. The passenger's side mirror was mauled completely, freely swinging towards the ground. The entire front right frame of the jeep buckled and distorted from the force of the collision, preventing the door from opening. The surrounding villagers, who had already gathered around the scene from the first accident let out a collective 'Ole' yell, understandable in any language.

Su, our guide sitting shotgun, was visibly shaken. The driver didn't stop due to there likely being no damage to the truck, and we progressed on in silence. Peggy and I, fine in the backseat save a few shards of glass and mirror at our feet, looked at each other with raised eyebrows and an 'Oh. Shit.' expression on our faces. A good half hour later, the driver tried to banter a bit in Vietnamese with Su, who wasn't really of the mind to hear any of it. 'My dad's got this killer set of tools; I can totally fix it', I imagined him saying.

The evening didn't turn out much better than the afternoon. We were dropped off at a local Pho (noodle soup) restaurant five hours early for our train departure. Reassured that our bags would be safe should we want to walk around the gritty Chinese border town of Loa Cai, we grabbed some plastic chairs and neglected to let them out of our sight. The tickets issued for our train stated that they were indeed 'train tickets', but we needed an additional boarding pass type of slip to make it on board.

With four hours to kill, I set off to figure out how to get said boarding slip. Walking through the train station parking lot, I found a minibus driver from one of the hotels in Sapa who pointed me to go over to a phone booth outside the station to get the slip. Not really understanding what he meant, I went to an office immediately behind the phone boot. The gentleman there, who had just sat down for his afternoon tea, led me purposefully by the hand (which was a bit weird) to the huddled masses surrounding the ticket windows. I picked one of the eight swarming queues and tried forcing my way to the nearest window.

Unbeknown to me, the Hanoi train was close to selling out. There were people yelling and shoving, women trying to buy their way to the front of the line. Cadre policemen were yelling at people with their megaphones and escorting them out of the station. Just another afternoon at the Loa Cai train station. I finally got up to the booth after being cut in front of about fifty times, well after the Hanoi train sold out. The disgruntled ticket agent lady just shrugged and handed the tickets back to me. The two other people standing around whom I had asked for advice both gave me different but consistently vague answers on what I needed to do to get on this train.

Back at the noodle restaurant, Peggy was trying to forget she saw a mouse scampering towards the kitchen and unsuccessfully finding something to order for dinner. She took the boarding pass cause upon herself and tried her luck with the owner of the restaurant, who said that he knew what to do and would help her. She gave him our tickets when he said that his wife knew a guy that would come over in ten minutes or so to help out. Forty minutes of no-show later, we were sweating a bit. With an hour left until our train was due to pull out of the station, we decided to forcefully retrieve the only thing that had our names on it and try our own luck at the station again.

As we approached the terminal, the restaurant owner zipped by on his scooter from a block away and said he would again help us. A few paces later, we reached a young twenty-something year old guy, sitting on the steps with his friends, only a few yards from the same phone booth I was directed to. He casually looked at our tickets and produced our needed boarding passes, stapling them together. No payment requested from either person, very little formality in the process at all. It was one of those events that leave you scratching your head going, 'hunh, how did that work?'

Sunday, March 04, 2007

Hmong Friends

We're driving up to a trading village called Ba Ca in a cultural revolution era Russian military jeep. Without seat belts, this vehicle's shocks and struts have not been replaced since Mao was on the prowl. Bad day to have stomach upsets and try to go 120k in the mountains. The driver is a disheveled looking Vietnamese man in a Members Only jacket, accompanied by a persistent smoker's cough. To his right sits Su, the pretty young Hmong woman who will serve as our guide for the day. It is just Peggy and I in the backseat, no teenage tour group to ruin our fun.

There are about a half-dozen different village tribes within the region, each with their own ornate costume and head wear. Some have some very distinctive appearances, with protruding foreheads accentuated with shaved heads up past the temples. They all generally sell cloth weaving, clothes or blankets, sometimes silver. I've also been offered opium by a green complexioned, one-toothed woman. Not sure which tribe she's from. Surprisingly, a select few of the vendors have excellent command of English, a skill developed from years of haggling with tourists. Although their verbal skills are at times impressive, I would guess the reading and writing would be lacking a bit, given no formal education. Nonetheless, the tribal women, especially the Hmong, are extremely friendly.

We chatted with a lady who told us all about her Tet / New Year's celebration. She said she had in her village a pig, chicken, goat, buffalo and elephant. I inquired a bit further about the elephant, doing my best impression of one, to which she started talking about different sticky rice recipes, leading me to think that something got lost in translation.

Sapa (Sa Pa) is an old city in the mountains, which we surmise was formerly used as a trading village or perhaps a strategic town along the Chinese border. All along the surrounding mountain sides, rice paddies create stairways stretching vertically to the sky. The positioning of this city in a mountain valley exposes it to massive fog banks that come rolling through, reminiscent of our Golden Gate. Sapa will be basking in the sunshine one minute, then enveloped in fog the next. The town itself really isn't that big, maybe 40,000 people. Tourism is the main game here, having started in full 12 years ago (probably a through Lonely Planet mention) and peaking on the weekend market days during the dry season. Just where we're at.

Ba Ca is another remote village that hosts the regional market on Sundays. You can buy the same handicrafts that one could in Sapa, but there is more of a local feel and a much larger turn out. Any type of animal is either being sold or butchered in the food stalls. Puppies cost $8, water buffalo $250, baby chickens are a dime a dozen. The Flower Hmong women dominate here, called as such because of their very colourful and ornate dressing. A photographer's dream.

The village women do all the selling, while the men are back in the villages or transporting people and materiel to and for. If a pack of villagers gets a whiff that you want to buy something, either through a pause in stride or fleeting eye contact, you're suddenly surrounded. They'll wear you down with relentless 'buy from me' sales tactics. If you should sit down for a second, or stop to look at a map, a half dozen girls and women nab you and fight for your attention. Various pantomiming will be attempted to show off their craftsman ship, convey a desired price and finally find a buyer.

There is one exemption to the tourist mongering habits of the village tribes: the Chinese. They arrive in town stomping in perfectly ordered columns of four, with their tour leader in front of the pack. The Chinese wear these bright red baseball hats which signify a 'no buy zone', keeping any village peddlers at bay. They're allowed a buffer of ten feet or so in which no villager dares to cross. We're told that they never buy, so no one even tries any more. They certainly change the vibe of whatever block they're marching down with an air of intimidation.

Saturday, March 03, 2007

Halfway House

Today marks the halfway point of our trip, one we can look upon favorable. Nothing major misplaced, no real injuries save a blister and a bug bite or two. No unsafe episodes, despite our inclination at times to walk around at night with three heavy bags; one on our backs and one slung over each shoulder. Come, take our wallets, we have the agility of pregnant hippopotamuses and can't really stand up straight, let alone run after you. Our diet has been good, keeping to a high bread content mantra and washing down any suspect local meat and veggies with generous portions of local beer, as to effectively kill any bacteria. So far, so good; only a few stomach flutters from either of us. Knock on wood.

Also, Peggy and I feel as if we have hit the jackpot here in Vietnam as the exchange rate has made us certified (as opposed to certifiable) millionaires. In fact, our recent ATM statement reveals that we're worth the greater part of a billion dong. After I make my first billion, the rest of them are just going to come easy. Shit, I'm carrying a million units of the local currency in my pocket as we speak. , maybe I'll just sit back and live off the interest for awhile. Then again, you know what they say, mo' dongs, mo' wrongs.

The Sapa weekend has just begun. We took an uneventful, but luxurious train ride through the night up to this city amongst the clouds. We got off at 6am only 3km from the Chinese border, at the transfer station of Lao Cai. Our guest house room rate included a minibus pickup, who were waiting for us with placard in hand as we got off the train. I had called to confirm in broken English a few days ago to confirm that they would indeed pick us up and this caused some confusion. A gentleman with the sign reading Cawthon was standing next to a man with a sign saying Cawtham. Apparently this failed to ring any bells at the guest house in that it might be the same reservation. As we piled into the minibus for and waited twenty minutes for the other guests to filter in, the Cawtham gentleman was seen still dejectedly wandering around the parking lot looking for his lost connection. We were not in the mood to try to set the record straight.

We were the only people in the 14 person capacity minibus initially. Then we were joined by three French women (ribbit). Then nearly a dozen teenage rejects from the regional quarterfinals of the Vietnamese Idol television show piled in, bringing the total to 17, including the driver. The trip was to be a 45-minute extremely windy drive up and over the mountain, with four of the boys tellingly choosing to pile into the back row.

>As we were puttering out of town, there was some implicit banter going on between the teenage drama class and the Vietnamese driver. A few blocks later, and only three minutes since we had left the station, the minibus pulled over at a small sidewalk produce store. I thought, 'sweet, he's getting us all bananas to pass around'. Unfortunately, he only brought a bunch of clear pink plastic bags and proceeded to pass them directly to the back of the bus.

Here's where the drama really began. We began to slowly wind our way up the mountain, making switchback turn after switchback turn. The rambunctious teenagers in the minibus suddenly grew eerily quiet. I've had an experience like this before, where on the way back from a Sierras choir camp as a kid, one of the boys (who was sitting in the back row) got sick and puked directly into his friend's shoes. This quickly set off a chain reaction that cataclysmicly caused nearly the entire bus to start blowing chunks. Eventually, the bus had to be pulled over and hosed down because the stench got to be so bad. As an 11-year old with little empathy at the time, I was immensely entertained by these events.

As a 31-year old with now even less empathy, I still did not wish to repeat the experience. Peggy and I closed our eyes, retreated into the confines of our tired minds and just tried to maintain even keel. Waiting, cringing for the damn to burst. The calm that settled in the bus was unnerving. The kid to the right of me fell asleep and played the game of allowing his head to rest against my shoulder to 10 seconds before realizing he was doing it. He'd then jerk his neck back upright and repeat the process all over again. About halfway up the mountain, the boy who had the noodle soup for dinner last night finally had them again for breakfast. I unplugged my hearing aids as to better block out his convulsions of nausea. He slid open the window immediately to Peggy's left and began to deposit his homemade pink plastic bombs every five minutes or so, the last payload being indiscriminately dropped in the middle of Sapa town square. We're absolutely thrilled to be sharing the guest house with this outgoing, yet unapologetic group for the entire weekend.

Friday, March 02, 2007

Stepping Out of the Sideshow

Cambodia is now effectively behind us, we rumbled through that country like a pair of drunken elephants. There was so much recent political history that would have been interesting to talk about in depth with a local, but with such a loaded subject and given our country of origin, we tread cautiously. Cambodia has so many little quirks that make it such an interesting place; like the rural weddings which pack enough audio firepower to rival a heavy metal stadium concert, stack and stacks of speakers blasting traditional Khmer music two villages in either direction.

Also in Cambodia, a visitor would be welcomed into the country with the humiliating process of public passport claim. After dubiously paying off your immigration official (Peggy had to pony up an extra $20 because she didn't have an blank page for her visa stamp), you assembled with a crowd of several dozen people to have your passport returned. Then, a female public official wearing a serious looking uniform and even more dower looking scowl, would stand up on her podium and show a given passport to the crowd waiting captively. She'd first attempt to absolutely butcher whatever name was on the passport, grinning maniacally all the while. The unlucky holder of said passport, the one consistently awful photograph, would have to sheepishly raise their hand in accept public humiliation. Each time, the crowd would let out a muffled chuckle in many foreign languages as they compared the awkward portrait to their real-life example.

There was this one hussy of a woman who, on the plane from Bangkok to Cambodia, would not stop talking. She went on and on about how hot and sweaty she was, how her tour took the bus, but she decided to fly, how tired she was... incessantly obnoxious. Although she had been 'rode hard and put up wet', she had really big breasts and was wearing a loose fitting summer dress. As a result, the guys surrounding her were captivated with all of her titillating adventures. She had a couple of potential suitors until the debacle that was her passport photo was presented for public display. She looked like Courtney Love after a three-night stint performing in Las Vegas. Hair color indecipherable, make-up applied via shotgun blast, expression a mix between confused and comatose. The crowd gasped instead of chuckling. Fittingly, it turns out she was from Sacramento.

Hanoi is loud. Scooters here seem to outnumber people by a three to one margin, filling every road, street and alleyway like a swarm of locusts. Street too crowded? Just stack the scooters three deep on the sidewalk. Our mantra has been to use the cars and buses as bell weathers, if we can avoid those larger moving objects, the scooters will figure themselves out. Crossing the street requires one's head to swivel as if watching a fast-paced tennis match. Our cab ride from the airport almost got Peggy t-boned by not only another taxi, but the dozen scooters surrounding it. All this accompanied by an atrocious Vietnamese cover version of In the White Room by Cream, playing over the taxi's radio.

Nonetheless, we're enjoying a much more relaxed atmosphere here than in Bangkok and can see the French influence in the architecture and the food. It does feel quite foreign; all the places have had a heavy English language emphasis up until Hanoi. Say what you will about the French (ribbit), but mon dieu, those baguettes c'est magnifique.

Merchants in Hanoi seem to gather themselves according to product offering, contrary to capitalist thought of the over saturation of a dozen like stores in a single area. Our hostel is located somewhere between the scooter repair district and the uniform embroidery / official hanging banner district. Earlier today, we walked through the street haircut district, the autocad / graphic designer district, the laptop district and the wooden gearshift knob district.

The communist influence is certainly felt here as well, with the cadres watching over every corner in their bright green outfits and May Day parade style uniforms. Around the streets of the Old Quarter, you'll see veterans of the American war; seniors still dressed in their fatigues and helmets, with a ghastly expression looking very shell shocked, grey and much worse for the wear.

We spent the day doing the tourist walk, lapping a lake that still today contains a massive 200 lb. ancient turtle, whose sole reproductive pair is already embalmed in the gift shop. We visited Uncle Ho in his mausoleum and saw all of the iconic highlights of pagodas and palaces. I must say, you really gotta love the public bong smoking by men and women, young and old. Feels like the 60's all over again.

Tonight we're getting on a train to head overnight North to Sapa, where the indigenous village tribes come out to trade in weekend mercantile markes. Should be a tourist crush of a small village town, but I can always Photoshop them out.

Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Wrestling with Reality

More temples today, bringing our total templeton activity to somewhere around nine or ten. They each have their own style and flavor, some old and abandoned, some restored and adopted. We took the tuk tuk on an hour and a half trip out of town to visit some of the more outlying temples, whose names escape me. The driving in the open air along Cambodian dirt roads really exposes you to the poverty in this country. Within 10km outside of Siem Reap, you're not going to find electricity in homes or running water. Many naked children running around dry fields with pigs, ducks, buffalo and chickens in tow. We're in the dry season, so all animals are looking fairly paltry with ribs showing.

Also, the driving in a metal box attached to a motor scooter is a good way to give yourself ulcers. When a car or bus wants to pass, it is a courtesy laying on the horn as they blow by you going 70 mph or so. Our tuk tuk probably maxes out at 30mph. This intermingled with traffic coming the other way, bikes, buffalo, children and anything you can imagine on the road just is a free for all. Cambodia is unique in that they've adopted a neutral stance on which side of the car the steering wheel is on. You've got a fifty-fifty chance of getting the correct one coming at you from the opposite direction. I would guess that it might be because of all the foreign delegations who come to the country offering diplomatic assistance with the health and the landmines.

We found out that there are three different political parties in this kingdom. A socialist party called Cambodian Peoples Party, a democratic party and the political party of the king. Aren't these all mutually exclusive? Why does this king need a political party, isn't being king enough? The king here cannot hold a candle to his Thai counterpart. Haven't seen a single picture of the king, other than the one outside of his palace. He'd feel really awkward in Thailand when seeing the adolation they have for their monarch. I'm not sure why a socialist party exists in this country either, they've seemed to have moved beyond that somewhat.

Lastly, wrestling. One really bizzare aspect of Cambodian society, and for that matter, all of South East Asia, is their love of American Wrestling. Morning, noon and night you'll find men and women, young and old, centered around television sets to watch degenerates in tights roll around on the ground. There is even a 'Wrestling' brand red wine (poorly pictured), but whether it increases testosterone, I'm afraid to try. I haven't had this much exposure to wrestling since I was 11 years old. I asked our guide who his favorite wrestler was and he giggled and said he likes the same ones his daughter likes. What is it about wrestling that gives it such widespread appeal? It could be the larger than life characters, thier over the top expressions and glistening man-boobs. One doesn't need to know much english to figure out who the bad guys are, or what the plot is. You'll find everywhere that kids and teenagers are wearing t-shirts with their favorite wrestling stars. If soccer is the world game, wrestling can't be too far behind.

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Kingdom Come

Cambodia! Come for the temples, stay for the mosquitoes. After a very intimate, peaceful time in Laos, the Kingdom of Cambodia is jarringly active. The development of the tourism industry here is in full swing, despite having being held back by a repressive political regime until the 80's. There are dozens and dozens of hotels here that wouldn't look out of place in Las Vegas, if Sin City had dirt roads, tuk-tuks, lethargic dogs and street children outside in the parking lot. Siem Reap is tour central because of its' proximity to Angkor Wat. Bus after bus comes rumbling down the road full of their tour groups, whom have tendencies to be quite loud and annoying. South Koreans seem to be disproportionate in their representation.

Siem Reap's name translates into 'Defeat of Thailand', presumably because of the Ancient Spring Roll recipe theft back in 1325. The aggressiveness which we found so ugly in Bangkok and refreshingly absent in Laos is back with a vengeance here in Cambodia. The quality of craft leaves something to be desired, although we haven't yet explored the markets fully.

The multicultural aspect is very much felt here as well. If there was a Jerusalem of the East, where two major religions have come to merge, this is it. With Angkor Wat being one of the largest religious structures in the world (second only to Dallas Cowboy Stadium), and a shrine to both the Buddhist and Hindu religion, you get a real diverse vibe from the sightseers. Certainly not the Lonely Planet crowd that we've been immersed in (and a part of) for our other destinations. Many poor are making a pilgrimage here from various parts of the world. One group of what I would guess to be South East Asian, perhaps Indonesian, approached Peggy at the top of one of the temples, wanting to have their picture taken with her. Peggy was a bit puzzled as to why a random family wanted to pose with her at a 1100 year old shrine, surmising that it was either her freckles or clothing adjourned with various floral patterns. I though it could be a resemblance to the carved stone Monkey Warriors from the army of Suryavarman II in the early 12th century.

We get up and do a morning looking at a temple or two, climbing the steep stone steps and getting lost in the various caverns and galleries. Interposed with cans of sour sop juice (tastes a bit like mango) we then have our driver and guide, Mr. Luong bounce us to the next ruins. Lunch is back 5kms to town, followed by a rest and then back to the temples in the evening for sunset.

Wide Eyed and Dreaming

Hello from the airport of Luang Prabang. We're through immigration after paying a departure tax of $10. When we arrived, we payed an arrival tax of $35. They had a sliding scale of what to pay for visitors from each country of the world. The vast majority were at the $35 dollar mark, the exception being the Swedes, who are only $31 dollars to enter Laos. Not sure what the $4 differential is between Swedes and the rest of the world, perhaps some of their diplomatic work entitles some discount.

The airport here is a bit awkward. We approached the counter and asked to check into our flight. They crew of three looked at us as if we had asked them if they might have had any good recipies using human brains. All check in procedures were done by the collective group, each pointing and muttering instructions at the computer screen simultaniously. Their working computer was a laptop that looked like it belonged to somebody's cousin. Our bags were whisked off an open loading dock into the back of a truch, which we hope is headed to the same airplane we are. To my left in the waiting area is a woman standing by the trash can whose job it seems is to stand by the trash can. Admittedly, one good things about asian airports and their airlines is that they always leave the emergency exit rows for the long-legged foreigners like myself. Sometimes being a wide-eye has its' privledges. We just heard an announcement over the single-speaker loudspeaker which sounded like Charlie Brown's teacher with a bad comical Chinese accent. No idea what it was meant to convey, but nobody seems too concerned.

Nonetheless, our stay in Luang Prabang was an overwhelmingly positive one. The Thong Bay Guest House was as hospitible and welcoming as anyone could ask for. We'd certianly stay there again. The town itself was a very unique and spiritual place, I can see why it is being preserved. The bugs and mozzies haven't been too bad, a few bites here and there, but we're winning the battle. Peggy has been touched by a slight case of Mekong River revenge, but has managed to soldier through it.

We've also found a scattered few who've either been on the same flight or seen walking around town. We're committed to meet up with a retired dentist and his eccentric Manhattanite wife in Hue next week. They were in the same hotel as us in Bangkok and we saw them in Siem Reap as well. I was lucky enough to run into a former co-worker from about six years ago at a cafe in Luang Prabang. Small world.

Sunday, February 25, 2007

Peggy, Me and Mister Thongby Makes Three

Tomorrow is our last day in the charming city of Luang Prabang. Laos' second largest city, but still relatively quiet and intimate. Peggy took a cooking class yesterday; I got really lost on my bike looking for Colonel Kurtz somewhere upriver. Both were memorable. Peggy's class was invigorating, re-educating her as to the origins of most types of Thai food. Seems as if those cheeky Thais have ripped off the culinary techniques and recipes of the Lao people for generations. She's looking forward to busting out the banana leaf and sticky rice for you all soon.

Today we're headed out on a boat to visit the cave of a thousand Buddha. We'll be stopping at a silk weaving village on the way home to get a sense of the local flavor. Our guide is Mister Thongby, a chatty old dude who has spent some of his formative years in the U.S. and A., knowing a little about San Francisco. Mr. Thongby's claim to fame was that we was written up in a two-sentence description in the Rough Guide: Laos Edition back in 1982. Mister Thongby was described as a good person to do guided tours with. Spoke good English. Mister Thongby's knowledge of American politics began and ended with a justifiable disdainful opinion of Richard Nixon. He also mentioned that his mother is 105 years old, only a half dozen off the pace of the world's oldest woman.

The locals here are absolutely nuts for bocce ball, the game which is always changing. There are dozens of courts (square patches of dirt) set up all across town. The men can be found huddled by the dozen around the bocce pits, wagering in what seems to be a jovial and friendly atmosphere. I parked myself court side for a few games, hoping to get the call into action. As some of you know firsthand, my skills at bocce ball are world renown, so I was a bit surprised none of the more professionals didn't recognize me. Their loss.

Last night we attended a puppet and dance show at the children's center, put on by 20 of the local kids. We watched as they did different dances depicting traditional Lao courtship, farming and combat rituals. One of the UNICEF workers and organizers of the even gave us a dinner recommendation, only to join us for a nightcap later on. We again at another french restaurant, great food, cocktails, beer and wine, Cuban cigars. I had the Fillet Mignon, Peggy a traditional Lao dish. Total bill, again, $35. Additionally, the cost of my lunch consisting of noodle soup, rice cakes and bottled water: 85 cents. Feels as if this entire town can be purchased for $10 or less. Although, Bushonomics has plunged the exchange rate from 10,000 to 9,600 kip per dollar. Many locals are weary about accepting the greenback instead of their local kip, can't say that I blame them.

In the mornings, the monasteries have their monks bang on gong and drums as early as 3:30am. This, in chorus with their chanting, wakes up the roosters, both of which in turn wakes up the tourists who wonder what the hell all the racket is about. Everyday the monks line up and receive rice from the town residents, whom place some in every bowl of young monk trainees. This is a way for the Buddhist community to look after one another, the monks don't eat unless people contribute. As with Luang Prabang as a whole, the introduction of the tourist have complicated things somewhat, with 50 photographers on every corner and over-zealous (presumably) non-Buddhists baiting monks with their rice in order to get a candid close-up picture. It would be as if during the Catholic service of communion, a non-follower processed up to the altar, only to break out a camera and fire a strobe flash in the priest's face. Something to meditate on.