Sounds like the title of a lost Graham Greene novel. I'm sitting at the computer on a tatami mat amid a chaos of half-packed bags, Kerry is making French toast, and we are awaiting a ride to the subway (and hence the train to Osaka, the plane to Tokyo, and the night flight home) in two hours.
As the trip (and blog) concludes, I am conscious of having written about far, far less of our experiences than I meant to. I have kept a sporadic diary too, but on more days than not we have been just too busy to record what we were doing, even in the most telegraphic list-like form, much less reflecting at length on it.
Just one example: as we biked the river yesterday I was thinking about the differences between the courtly, precise, always-careful-not-to-offend manners of Thailand and (in a different way) Japan, as compared to the brusqueness (to put it politely) of Vietnam or China. To us, the Chinese and Vietnamese can seem extraordinarily pushy, rude and uncouth... and that, I suspect, is just how we seem to the Thais and Japanese. Just one thing I wanted to write about in more detail and have not.
Anyway, I have loved that aspect of Japan - along with its related obsession with aesthetics, the gorgeous gardens etc etc - and wish I could have done a crash course in the language and history and then spent a month or two here. Next time, perhaps... extended travel does make you greedy!
And yet... in another way I'm truly looking forward to coming home.
Time for breakfast.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Last day in Kyoto
We've been having a wonderful time in Kyoto. There are far more sights to see than can possibly be seen in 4 days, so we've tried to hit a few of the highlights, while balancing them with spending time exploring the city. Today we had a lovely bike ride up the tow path on the Yama River, all the way to the shrine where my brother Keith and his wife Noriko were married. The shrine was bustling with activity, since there is a huge festival being held in two days there.
From there, we biked back down the river, turned East, and went back to Ginkakaju, a temple we'd missed the other day. When we realized it was closed for renovation, we treated ourselves to brown rice profiteroles (yummy), then biked the philosopher's walk. We'd walked it the other day, but I decided that I much preferred it by bike.
Next we went to the Kalaedoscope museum. Yup, there is such a thing, and it's well worth taking a look. I had never realized how many different kinds of kalaedoscopes there are, nor how seriously artists take the form. The best thing about the museum is that they have about 50 on display at any given time, and you can pick them up and look through them all. My absolute favorite was one that you looked through to view ribbons that you rolled and unrolled.
A bit more biking, a bit more souvenir shopping, and now we're cleaning up before going to dinner. Last night's dinner featured the world's biggest bowls of ramen, so tonight we're going for soba. Then we have to pack and face a very long travel day.
From there, we biked back down the river, turned East, and went back to Ginkakaju, a temple we'd missed the other day. When we realized it was closed for renovation, we treated ourselves to brown rice profiteroles (yummy), then biked the philosopher's walk. We'd walked it the other day, but I decided that I much preferred it by bike.
Next we went to the Kalaedoscope museum. Yup, there is such a thing, and it's well worth taking a look. I had never realized how many different kinds of kalaedoscopes there are, nor how seriously artists take the form. The best thing about the museum is that they have about 50 on display at any given time, and you can pick them up and look through them all. My absolute favorite was one that you looked through to view ribbons that you rolled and unrolled.
A bit more biking, a bit more souvenir shopping, and now we're cleaning up before going to dinner. Last night's dinner featured the world's biggest bowls of ramen, so tonight we're going for soba. Then we have to pack and face a very long travel day.
Monday, May 11, 2009
English (or lack thereof) in Japan
We've been very busy here, trundling around to various temples, wandering through neighborhoods, and generally trying to see as much as we can in our last few days. We've walked a lot, we've ridden public buses, we've taken railways and subways, and we've even rented bikes. And in all this, we've been struck by how little English is here. There are few street signs in English, the subway and buses have almost no English, and we've been in several dining places with no English menus or spoken English (thank goodness for the plastic food in the window; point and you shall receive).
Now, you may ask why we would expect English in Japan. After all, we're the foreigners. And it's not like Seattle exactly rolls out the welcome mat in Japanese. But. We have been amazed at how much English we encountered throughout SE Asia, especially street signs and public maps. I don't think I'd realized just how much, until we got here and navigating became noticeably harder.
This isn't a complaint, just an observation. We're getting the hang of things, and folks here have been very warm and helpful with our butchered attempts at Japanese and our "point and look stupid" method of getting around. We really like Kyoto, and wish that we could spend more time here.
Now, you may ask why we would expect English in Japan. After all, we're the foreigners. And it's not like Seattle exactly rolls out the welcome mat in Japanese. But. We have been amazed at how much English we encountered throughout SE Asia, especially street signs and public maps. I don't think I'd realized just how much, until we got here and navigating became noticeably harder.
This isn't a complaint, just an observation. We're getting the hang of things, and folks here have been very warm and helpful with our butchered attempts at Japanese and our "point and look stupid" method of getting around. We really like Kyoto, and wish that we could spend more time here.
One last post about toilets
Having said that most of the toilets in SE Asia surprised me with their cleanliness, I have to say that Chinese toilets were pretty bad. Mostly they were squat toilets, and mostly they were not very clean, but what made them stand out was the plumbing. Not only can you not flush the paper, the sewers don't seem to deal well with anything, and the smell (even in a clean toilet) was pretty potent.
One thing China did do well, though, was have easily available public toilets. Since many areas historically lack plumbing in individual dwellings, there are lots of public loos. We have a picture of one brand new one of these, complete with a row of 5 or 6 new, Toto squats, with automatic flushes. Of course, they don't bother with separate stalls, so you squat right next to the next person. (Note, that when there are stalls, older Chinese women don't usually bother with shutting the doors anyways, and usually do up their trousers in the hallway.) The automatic flush on a squat toilet is a bit interesting too, since if you're not careful, it can flush unexpectedly and they occasionally spray with enthusiasm.
Oh, and China was the first place that I saw the dirty footprints on the seat of the one Western toilet in the bathroom.
Here in Japan, the toilets are clean, you can flush the paper, and there is an SOS button in nearly all the stalls in public places. In spite of all this, we have yet to find any soap in any public washroom.
The toilet in our house is so high tech we can't figure out how to work it, but I will say the heated seat is pretty nifty. We can't figure out what all the other buttons are for. And it has a gray water system--there is a small sink over the tank. After you flush, the tank refills through a faucet over the sink, and you can wash your hands in that water. It is then stored for the next flush.
One thing China did do well, though, was have easily available public toilets. Since many areas historically lack plumbing in individual dwellings, there are lots of public loos. We have a picture of one brand new one of these, complete with a row of 5 or 6 new, Toto squats, with automatic flushes. Of course, they don't bother with separate stalls, so you squat right next to the next person. (Note, that when there are stalls, older Chinese women don't usually bother with shutting the doors anyways, and usually do up their trousers in the hallway.) The automatic flush on a squat toilet is a bit interesting too, since if you're not careful, it can flush unexpectedly and they occasionally spray with enthusiasm.
Oh, and China was the first place that I saw the dirty footprints on the seat of the one Western toilet in the bathroom.
Here in Japan, the toilets are clean, you can flush the paper, and there is an SOS button in nearly all the stalls in public places. In spite of all this, we have yet to find any soap in any public washroom.
The toilet in our house is so high tech we can't figure out how to work it, but I will say the heated seat is pretty nifty. We can't figure out what all the other buttons are for. And it has a gray water system--there is a small sink over the tank. After you flush, the tank refills through a faucet over the sink, and you can wash your hands in that water. It is then stored for the next flush.
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Hello from Kyoto
After a longish day, we arrived in Kyoto last night. We are renting a very small house (though it's bigger than our apartment in Paris) in the north east part of the city. We have just made our very own scrambled eggs (no browned bits!) and toast, and are headed out to see what we can see. There's so much here, 4 days can't possibly be enough.
It feels like such a luxury to be able to drink tap water.
It feels like such a luxury to be able to drink tap water.
Friday, May 8, 2009
Leaving for Japan
Bad connection here in Beijing so I have not been able to post any pictures and will keep this short. Unbelievable, but this is our last morning in mainland Asia... we've got a couple of hours after breakfast to wander back to Tiananmen and round the neighborhood one more time, then we're off to the airport and will be in Kyoto this evening. Yesterday, an interesting day at the vast Summer Palace - more a city than a palace; on Thursday, a brilliant day that I'll never forget on the Great Wall.
Goodbye China! Goodbye SE Asia! Can we REALLY have been traveling for 143 days?
Goodbye China! Goodbye SE Asia! Can we REALLY have been traveling for 143 days?
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Beijing
It's been really hard to blog from here (internet connection is not good, and we are so, so busy), but there's so much to say.
I'm absolutely blown away by Beijing. I was here 20 years ago (just 4 months after the protests in Tiananmen Square), and things have changed more than I could possibly have imagined.
We are staying in a 2 star hotel in a funky little hutong neighborhood. Hutongs are the traditional neighborhoods, with one story buildings (sometimes two, but rarely). Most folks don't have their own bathing facilities, so there are public loos and baths every block or so, and the houses are small, so there is lots of life on the streets. Traditionally, these neighborhoods are rabbit warren like, and full of smells and sounds and sights. But in walking around (and we have walked upwards of 8 miles a day here), we've seen "new" hutongs--areas that were flattened and rebuilt by the government in anticipation of the Olympics. The shape is the same, and the buildings are similar, but everything is new. It's hard to describe how disconcerting it all is.
And then there are the huge skyscrapers, the high end malls (Louis Vitton, anyone?) and the fabulous subway/metro system that costs just 30 cents regardless of how far you ride. We went today too to see the Bird's Nest and the Cube. The TV never captured just how much space there is surrounding these buildings. And I never imagined that they were turning into derelict structures, because they can't find sporting events to host in them.
We've got lots more to say about Beijing, but we've got to get up in 9 hours to go see the Great Wall.
Only 8 more days on the road, and then we're home. We can't believe it, and are trying to fit in as much as we can. It's going to be a hard transition.
I'm absolutely blown away by Beijing. I was here 20 years ago (just 4 months after the protests in Tiananmen Square), and things have changed more than I could possibly have imagined.
We are staying in a 2 star hotel in a funky little hutong neighborhood. Hutongs are the traditional neighborhoods, with one story buildings (sometimes two, but rarely). Most folks don't have their own bathing facilities, so there are public loos and baths every block or so, and the houses are small, so there is lots of life on the streets. Traditionally, these neighborhoods are rabbit warren like, and full of smells and sounds and sights. But in walking around (and we have walked upwards of 8 miles a day here), we've seen "new" hutongs--areas that were flattened and rebuilt by the government in anticipation of the Olympics. The shape is the same, and the buildings are similar, but everything is new. It's hard to describe how disconcerting it all is.
And then there are the huge skyscrapers, the high end malls (Louis Vitton, anyone?) and the fabulous subway/metro system that costs just 30 cents regardless of how far you ride. We went today too to see the Bird's Nest and the Cube. The TV never captured just how much space there is surrounding these buildings. And I never imagined that they were turning into derelict structures, because they can't find sporting events to host in them.
We've got lots more to say about Beijing, but we've got to get up in 9 hours to go see the Great Wall.
Only 8 more days on the road, and then we're home. We can't believe it, and are trying to fit in as much as we can. It's going to be a hard transition.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Amazing Beijing
In a rush...
We arrived in B Monday morning on the train, and have spent both Monday and Tues walking walking walking. Tiananmen Square, Temple of Heaven Park, four straight hours in the Forbidden City, hutongs (narrow-alleyed traditional neighborhoods). Fascinating - also eye-tearingly polluted. Details later - off to see some of the Olympic stuff today.
We arrived in B Monday morning on the train, and have spent both Monday and Tues walking walking walking. Tiananmen Square, Temple of Heaven Park, four straight hours in the Forbidden City, hutongs (narrow-alleyed traditional neighborhoods). Fascinating - also eye-tearingly polluted. Details later - off to see some of the Olympic stuff today.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
May Day Holiday in Xian
After visiting the Terracotta Warriors yesterday on the busiest day of the entire year, today (Sunday) we wandered around Xian on the biggest holiday weekend of the year. A second failed attempt to see the history museum (we keep showing up between 11 and 1, when it is supposed to be open but isn't), we picked a random park nearby, expecting 3 acres of scrubby grass and maybe a bench. Instead, Xingqinggong Park is gigantic, and stuffed with bot entertainments and a couple of hundred thousand Xian families enjoying them. Aidan and Declan insisted on trying a "bungee machine" that was totally unsafe and nearly broke both their necks; luckily they felt so sick on it that they lasted about one minute each. After that we just wandered and gaped, and, not for the first time, were amused to be gaped AT by the Chinese.
It's curious to us: Xian is a major tourist destination and yet we keep finding ourselves in places where we are the only non-Chinese in sight. I think it has to do with the fact that we avoid tours like the plague and are fanatical about walking everywhere. After the park we kept walking, and actually got somewhat lost, which necessitated going up to random people and pointing hopefully at a map. Ordinary Chinese, especially in untouristed side-streets, tend to look at us as if we were space aliens - but a smile and a wave brings waves of smiles and mugging in return.
Just hanging out now before an 8.40 night train (our first in China) to Beijing. Will the sleeper cars be any more comfortable than the ones in Vietnam? Could they be even worse? We will soon know.
It's curious to us: Xian is a major tourist destination and yet we keep finding ourselves in places where we are the only non-Chinese in sight. I think it has to do with the fact that we avoid tours like the plague and are fanatical about walking everywhere. After the park we kept walking, and actually got somewhat lost, which necessitated going up to random people and pointing hopefully at a map. Ordinary Chinese, especially in untouristed side-streets, tend to look at us as if we were space aliens - but a smile and a wave brings waves of smiles and mugging in return.
Just hanging out now before an 8.40 night train (our first in China) to Beijing. Will the sleeper cars be any more comfortable than the ones in Vietnam? Could they be even worse? We will soon know.
Friday, May 1, 2009
Terracotta Warriors
Yesterday we went to the terracotta warriors. The drive there was OK but the drive back was hideous because the driver seemed to be on the verge of sleep!
The warriors themselves were not actually all perfectly put together and with heads. Despite what you see in photographs, most of them are either headless or just piles of bits, and most of pit 2 is still under the roof. Most of pit one is broken with just the front part (what you see in photos) put together perfectly with heads.
The warriors are around 2200 years old. There are around 1127 items unearthed and there is expected to be around 7000 figures total with hundreds of chariots and horses. What amazes me is that they still haven't figured out how they fired them!
The warriors themselves were not actually all perfectly put together and with heads. Despite what you see in photographs, most of them are either headless or just piles of bits, and most of pit 2 is still under the roof. Most of pit one is broken with just the front part (what you see in photos) put together perfectly with heads.
The warriors are around 2200 years old. There are around 1127 items unearthed and there is expected to be around 7000 figures total with hundreds of chariots and horses. What amazes me is that they still haven't figured out how they fired them!
Big Wild Goose Pagoda
Yesterday, we went to Big Wild Goose Pagoda (BWGP). We had been meaning to go to a museum, but we got there around 11 to find it closed for lunch, even though nothing in our guide book, on the web, or even on the museum's signs said that it did. After a guard offered to sell is tickets even though the ticket office was closed (can we say bribe), we went for a walk. On our walk, we got to the fountain in front of BWGP in the middle of an orchestral water performance, which involved very loud classical music with the water in the fountain accompanying it. Its most distinctive feature was the guards, both male and female, dotted around the fountain, wearing the strangest uniforms. Well, the style of the uniforms wasn't all that weird, but the colors were. The men were dressed in blue jackets, black knee high boots, with white pants tucked into them, and yellow shoulder ropes. The women were wearing hot-pink jackets with yellow shoulder ropes, white skirts, and white knee high, high heel boots.
When the show was done, we walked around the outer wall of BWGP until we got to the entrance. We paid our fees and went into the complex. We first saw the bell and drum towers, which I didn't think were very impressive except for the amount of money on the floor. Then, we went to the entrance of the seven storey main tower and bought separate entrance tickets. Then we climbed the 251 steps to the top and admired the view, which was OK except for Xi'an's pollution haze. Then we left the complex, wandering past the guard dogs (either Shepard, Leonburgers, or Shepard-Golden crosses, but any way, big). Declan and I did a balloon shooting fair stall thing, which was easy because we were about five feet from the balloons. Then we went to lunch and got a taxi back to the hostel.
When the show was done, we walked around the outer wall of BWGP until we got to the entrance. We paid our fees and went into the complex. We first saw the bell and drum towers, which I didn't think were very impressive except for the amount of money on the floor. Then, we went to the entrance of the seven storey main tower and bought separate entrance tickets. Then we climbed the 251 steps to the top and admired the view, which was OK except for Xi'an's pollution haze. Then we left the complex, wandering past the guard dogs (either Shepard, Leonburgers, or Shepard-Golden crosses, but any way, big). Declan and I did a balloon shooting fair stall thing, which was easy because we were about five feet from the balloons. Then we went to lunch and got a taxi back to the hostel.
A New Theory Of Ant Hills
My new theory of ant hills is that they are giant archaeological sights and, despite what scientists may tell you, the ants carrying leaves or other items are the tour guides and the rest are tourists. Also "leaf cutter ants" are tour guides in training.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Hong Kong and Xian
I was in HK 22 years ago (gulp) visiting my sister, Clarissa - and this time got Kerry to take a picture of me leaning on the railing on the Peak in exactly the spot (I think) where Clarissa took a picture of me in 1987. I look exactly the same, of course, but HK has a thousand new gleaming major buildings and half a dozen new transportation systems, and is even more hyperkinetic and stunning to look at than before. Astonishing to be in Kowloon or Central, which make Manhattan seem like a village, and then after a half hour ferry ride be walking up a hill on Lantau, which (apart from a bronze Buddha the size of a three-story house) could be in Scotland.
Up at 5 AM to get the plane this morning; a long first exploratory walk around Xian this afternoon; and so to bed in a friendly if noisy hostel on a narrow lane right under Xian's vast and ancient outer wall.
Up at 5 AM to get the plane this morning; a long first exploratory walk around Xian this afternoon; and so to bed in a friendly if noisy hostel on a narrow lane right under Xian's vast and ancient outer wall.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Nanny Sarah
On our first day in Hong Kong, we met up with our nanny from when I was in first grade and her husband Tim. It was really fun to see them again. We first took the funicular up the peak (we technically took star ferry to get there) and went for a walk. Next, we took the elevators up the mid levels and had burritos for lunch. Then we got on the ferry to Lanta (?) island. We took a bus up to the base of the giant Buddha, and climbed up to it. We saw a movie being filmed at the top. Then, we went back to the base and got ice cream. After the ice cream, we went on a cable car ride to an area near the airport, where Sarah and Tim had to go meet Sarah's dad at the airport, and we got the subway back to central Hong Kong. having them with us made Hong Kong day one an unforgettable experience.
Honkong
Today we arrived in Xian from Hong Kong. We spent 48 hours in Hong Kong to see Nanny Sarah and Tim. We spent our first day in Hong Kong with Nanny Sarah and Tim acting as our guides.
One cool sight we saw was the midlevels escalators which are the longest escalators in the world!
One cool sight we saw was the midlevels escalators which are the longest escalators in the world!
Hong Kong Whirlwind
We've been in Hong Kong barely 48 hours, and we're leaving for Xian in 8 hours. Wow.
We were lucky enough to be able to spend all day yesterday with "Nanny Sarah" and her husband Tim, who are teaching English in China, quite near Hong Kong. We last saw them about 4 years ago, and Sarah first nannied for us in the summer when Aidan was just finishing first grade. They were fabulous hosts, and made our first day in Hong Kong a great one.
It's now nearly midnight, and we only just got back to the hotel. We'll put up more about our HK adventures from Xian (assuming we can get internet).
We were lucky enough to be able to spend all day yesterday with "Nanny Sarah" and her husband Tim, who are teaching English in China, quite near Hong Kong. We last saw them about 4 years ago, and Sarah first nannied for us in the summer when Aidan was just finishing first grade. They were fabulous hosts, and made our first day in Hong Kong a great one.
It's now nearly midnight, and we only just got back to the hotel. We'll put up more about our HK adventures from Xian (assuming we can get internet).
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Hanoi
We spent three wonderful days in Sapa, and have been back in Hanoi for three days. We're staying with Sarah, Ton and their three great kids. It's been absolutely wonderful to be in a home, not a hotel, and to experience life outside the main tourist track. We leave tomorrow for Hong Kong for a whirlwind 48 hours, then on to Xian in China.
More tomorrow.
More tomorrow.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
"Up yours"
We got to Sapa on the crazily early train today (it left Ha Noi at 9:10 last night and got here at maybe 5 or 6 this morning.) Because we couldn't check into our hotel until 10, we decided to walk around. On our walk, we were pestered by a girl about up to my thigh trying to sell us stuff. When we just kept ignoring her, she said some thing that sounded alot like up yours and walked off.
Halong Bay
We just got back from Halong Bay. From a distance the landscape was amazing. But when you got down and kayaked, you could see that there wasn't much marine life and there was a huge amount of pollution. When we went into one lagoon our guide started describing how monkey brains were eaten. This was to explain why we couldn't see any monkeys on the island. Our one stop was at a floating fishing village which struck me as crowded with tourists. It seemed like a bit of a cramped life because you have an entire extended family living in a 10 by 10 hut floating on a bunch of styrofoam blocks lashed together. All the houses had dogs to protect the house and to pull the children out if they fill into the water. Around each house was a small fish farm. We also saw clam farms, which are plastic tubs of sand sunk into the shallows around the islands.
Sandcastles
This morning we were messing about on the beach before checking out of our fancy hotel and I decided to start building a sandpile. I started quite small, but with a large base and eventually, after a lot of sand digging and packing with mom's help, it got up to my waist. Then two sides of it collapsed. Then we used a collapsed sand to build a wall around the bottom. Then dad took a picture. And finally, I ran all the way down the beach and jumped on it.
At the first jump I just barely knocked off the top, but then I just climbed on top of it and jumped up and down. That collapsed it fairly effectively. This was our last beach visit of this trip. It was fun.
At the first jump I just barely knocked off the top, but then I just climbed on top of it and jumped up and down. That collapsed it fairly effectively. This was our last beach visit of this trip. It was fun.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Asian beds
Lots of new pictures just loaded into the album.
I have been meaning to write a post about my 4-month stiff neck and how its major cause is the strange Asian prediliction for beds and pillows that are like cotton-shrouded bricks. Last night we stayed for one night in a relatively luxe hotel on Cat Ba Island near Halong Bay, as part of a mini-tour... the bed was California-Emperor-sized, or something. But, just as in the most flea-bitten budget guesthouses, the mattress has all the give of a stone floor and the pillows are 5" thick and remind me of a couch my grandmother owned that was stuffed with horsehair. This morning I woke up thinking fondly of my own bed and a few weeks of physical therapy. The rest of the family is begging for massages and I'm being the bad guy and saying No, they're too expensive here.
Halong Bay in very very brief: the first day we cruised in a junk, and were stunned by how beautiful it is. The second day we kayaked, and were stunned by how polluted it is. As in all of Asia, there is plastic trash EVERYWHERE. The sad thing is that the Vietnamese just don't see it, as far as I can tell, and a conversation with our guide (who is a great guy, with excellent English, but who didn't quite seem to see what we were fussing about) suggests that the main source is not increased tourism, as you might expect, but local people who have always thrown everything into the sea but have come to rely on plastic products only in the last 20-30 years.
I have been meaning to write a post about my 4-month stiff neck and how its major cause is the strange Asian prediliction for beds and pillows that are like cotton-shrouded bricks. Last night we stayed for one night in a relatively luxe hotel on Cat Ba Island near Halong Bay, as part of a mini-tour... the bed was California-Emperor-sized, or something. But, just as in the most flea-bitten budget guesthouses, the mattress has all the give of a stone floor and the pillows are 5" thick and remind me of a couch my grandmother owned that was stuffed with horsehair. This morning I woke up thinking fondly of my own bed and a few weeks of physical therapy. The rest of the family is begging for massages and I'm being the bad guy and saying No, they're too expensive here.
Halong Bay in very very brief: the first day we cruised in a junk, and were stunned by how beautiful it is. The second day we kayaked, and were stunned by how polluted it is. As in all of Asia, there is plastic trash EVERYWHERE. The sad thing is that the Vietnamese just don't see it, as far as I can tell, and a conversation with our guide (who is a great guy, with excellent English, but who didn't quite seem to see what we were fussing about) suggests that the main source is not increased tourism, as you might expect, but local people who have always thrown everything into the sea but have come to rely on plastic products only in the last 20-30 years.
Apple Pie Squid
We are just finishing our stop in Halong Bay (another post, another time), and are collapsing after our dinner in the hotel. On the menu (prepaid, part of the mini-tour we booked), we had Deep Fried Squid, Hong Kong Style. It arrived looking like any other pile of breaded and deep fried squid bits, covered in a glutinous red sweet and sour sauce. But, the sauce turned out to be flavored with cinnamon and the crisp veggie sticks under the squid turned out to be apples. Very, very odd, but quite tasty too.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Walking in Hanoi
Today we took a walking tour of old Hanoi. Wow. I think I'm lucky to be alive, because I spent so much time gawking at everything that I was in definite danger of either getting run over by a motor bike or tripping into the path of a car after stubbing a toe on one of the many obstacles on the streets. Notice I say streets. Sidewalks here do exist, and in places it is even possible to walk on them. But. They are more often blocked by parked motorbikes, women selling meat or produce from baskets suspended on wooden poles, shops that overflow their storefronts, small tables and plastic stools that make up lunch spots or family dining rooms, or all of the above competing for about two square meters of space.
Imagine first deafening noise. Motor bikes revving their engines and car and truck horns honking continuously to warn smaller road users (including motor bikes, scooters, cyclos, bicycles, pedestrians, and women carrying heavy loads). On top of this is conversation and business carried out at full volume, to try to compete with the road noise. Add to this all manner of folks coming and going, with little regard for lines between street and sidewalk, and almost no regard for things like crosswalks or traffic lights. Mix in heat and humidity (though not as much as further south), dust, pollution, and random bits of garbage and loose hunks of concrete. Then, just as you should be trying to avoid stepping on the woman breast feeding her baby while serving tea at her sidewalk cafe, you are instead staring open mouthed at the square meter of gorgeous roses strapped to the back of a bicycle going by. Closely followed by the motor bike with 5 costco size packages of toilet paper perched behind two riders. And the shop which sells nothing but packing tape. A few blocks later, the shops sell nothing but metal items--tools, nuts and bolts gradually giving way to tin boxes and cooking pots. Round the corner and it's nothing but shoes. Then tourist souvenirs, then back to practical things, like fake paper money and incense for burning as offerings.
As I said, wow. We'll put some pictures up in a few days which I hope will convey some of this. In the meantime, we are off to Halong Bay for two days of exploring mother nature.
Imagine first deafening noise. Motor bikes revving their engines and car and truck horns honking continuously to warn smaller road users (including motor bikes, scooters, cyclos, bicycles, pedestrians, and women carrying heavy loads). On top of this is conversation and business carried out at full volume, to try to compete with the road noise. Add to this all manner of folks coming and going, with little regard for lines between street and sidewalk, and almost no regard for things like crosswalks or traffic lights. Mix in heat and humidity (though not as much as further south), dust, pollution, and random bits of garbage and loose hunks of concrete. Then, just as you should be trying to avoid stepping on the woman breast feeding her baby while serving tea at her sidewalk cafe, you are instead staring open mouthed at the square meter of gorgeous roses strapped to the back of a bicycle going by. Closely followed by the motor bike with 5 costco size packages of toilet paper perched behind two riders. And the shop which sells nothing but packing tape. A few blocks later, the shops sell nothing but metal items--tools, nuts and bolts gradually giving way to tin boxes and cooking pots. Round the corner and it's nothing but shoes. Then tourist souvenirs, then back to practical things, like fake paper money and incense for burning as offerings.
As I said, wow. We'll put some pictures up in a few days which I hope will convey some of this. In the meantime, we are off to Halong Bay for two days of exploring mother nature.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Hanoi Hilton?
We had planned to take the night train to Hanoi tonight, but we flew here this morning instead because it was almost the same price; we are now in a tiny, rather shop-worn hotel on a tiny, rather shop-worn alley in the very shop-worn Old Quarter. And they mean Old: Hanoi is planning big celebrations next year for the 1,000th anniversary of its founding.
Impressions so far: humid and hot by any temperate standards, but fresh as a daisy compared to Hue or Saigon. We walked around and gawped this afternoon, and sat on the sidewalk on the child-sized plastic chairs the Vietnamese favor while a guy hand-carved personalized ink stamps for A+D.
We will be sight-seeing tomorrow, doing back-to-back tours of Halong Bay and Sapa starting on Thursday, then back here for 4 nights on April 22.
Today marks exactly one month before we are back in Seattle...
Impressions so far: humid and hot by any temperate standards, but fresh as a daisy compared to Hue or Saigon. We walked around and gawped this afternoon, and sat on the sidewalk on the child-sized plastic chairs the Vietnamese favor while a guy hand-carved personalized ink stamps for A+D.
We will be sight-seeing tomorrow, doing back-to-back tours of Halong Bay and Sapa starting on Thursday, then back here for 4 nights on April 22.
Today marks exactly one month before we are back in Seattle...
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Heat 1, Family 0
Today has been unbearably hot, and we gave up the sightseeing long before we saw what we should have seen. We are in Hue, the ancient capitol of Vietnam, and we attempted to tour the citadel and royal enclosure today. We saw some, perhaps half, and then collapsed into two cyclos to be pedaled back to our aircon hotel rooms. I looked up the temp, and it was a mere 90, with 66 percent humidity. But the "real feel" was 97 degrees.
Cooking School in Hoi An
A few days ago we went to a cooking class. It started with a drink at the cafe that operates the class. I drank a bottle of water because my stomach wasn't feeling all that well (but it felt much better later). Then we got a tour of the local market. On the tour Mom bought a new vegetable peeler. The point of the market tour was to learn what we were cooking and what various vegetables, herbs, meat and fish are used for. There was flying fish for sale. There was corn silk for sale. The guide said it's used to make soup for weddings, because it symbolizes the tying together of the couple.
After the market tour, we got on a boat going to the cooking school. Once at the school we got a brief intro and then the head chef demonstrated how to make seafood salad in a pineapple boat. The head chef was very funny, occasionally using lines like "You must treat it gently, like a lover. Me, I'm single, but I watch movies."
After the seafood salad, the chef demonstrated how to make fresh rice paper and then roll it into spring rolls. You make a rice batter by soaking a cup of white rice in two cups of water for seven hours, and then draining the water off and and adding fresh water. Then you put it in the blender for 5 to 7 minutes, until it is really smooth. To cook it, you pour the batter onto a cheesecloth stretched over a pot of boiling water and steam it for about 1 minute. To remove it you use a skewer of some form and then you put it on a plate and add your filling. The filling normally consists of some sort of meat and vegetables. Then you roll it up, and cut it into pieces, and eat.
Next, he demonstrated how to make Vietnamese pancakes. The pancake batter is the same as the rice paper batter, just with a pinch of tumeric added, and whatever meat you want. You stir it up, and pour it into a pan with oil in it, then shift the pan around until it looks somewhat cooked. Then you sprinkle chopped up spring onion and bean sprouts on top. Then you keep frying it until the bean sprouts and spring onions have sunk in a bit and are cooked in. And then you flip it over to cook it on the other side. Then you flip it a few more times, and then pour off the oil and slide it onto a plate. You take it and put it on a napkin and press the napkin on it so it removes some of the oil. Then put a piece of dry rice paper on the plate, put the pancake on that with some lettuce and herbs on top of it, then roll it up and eat.
Each time the chef showed us how to do something, we then went over to our cooking stations and tried them ourselves. We then got to eat what we made.
The last thing we learned how to cook was eggplant in clay pot. Surprisingly enough, I ate most of my eggplant, probably because it was cooked by me and I knew exactly what went into it. I tweaked the recipe a little by not putting so much chili into it or tomato.
Then we learned some food decoration, including how to make roses out of tomato peels and Vietnamese hand fans out of cucumber. My rose looked like a tulip, and my cucumber failed, but it was still fun.
After the market tour, we got on a boat going to the cooking school. Once at the school we got a brief intro and then the head chef demonstrated how to make seafood salad in a pineapple boat. The head chef was very funny, occasionally using lines like "You must treat it gently, like a lover. Me, I'm single, but I watch movies."
After the seafood salad, the chef demonstrated how to make fresh rice paper and then roll it into spring rolls. You make a rice batter by soaking a cup of white rice in two cups of water for seven hours, and then draining the water off and and adding fresh water. Then you put it in the blender for 5 to 7 minutes, until it is really smooth. To cook it, you pour the batter onto a cheesecloth stretched over a pot of boiling water and steam it for about 1 minute. To remove it you use a skewer of some form and then you put it on a plate and add your filling. The filling normally consists of some sort of meat and vegetables. Then you roll it up, and cut it into pieces, and eat.
Next, he demonstrated how to make Vietnamese pancakes. The pancake batter is the same as the rice paper batter, just with a pinch of tumeric added, and whatever meat you want. You stir it up, and pour it into a pan with oil in it, then shift the pan around until it looks somewhat cooked. Then you sprinkle chopped up spring onion and bean sprouts on top. Then you keep frying it until the bean sprouts and spring onions have sunk in a bit and are cooked in. And then you flip it over to cook it on the other side. Then you flip it a few more times, and then pour off the oil and slide it onto a plate. You take it and put it on a napkin and press the napkin on it so it removes some of the oil. Then put a piece of dry rice paper on the plate, put the pancake on that with some lettuce and herbs on top of it, then roll it up and eat.
Each time the chef showed us how to do something, we then went over to our cooking stations and tried them ourselves. We then got to eat what we made.
The last thing we learned how to cook was eggplant in clay pot. Surprisingly enough, I ate most of my eggplant, probably because it was cooked by me and I knew exactly what went into it. I tweaked the recipe a little by not putting so much chili into it or tomato.
Then we learned some food decoration, including how to make roses out of tomato peels and Vietnamese hand fans out of cucumber. My rose looked like a tulip, and my cucumber failed, but it was still fun.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
The train to Hue
After a very pleasant three days in Hoi An, during which we even permitted ourselves that ultimate tourist indulgence, a cooking class, and leaned how to make our own fresh rice paper for spring rolls (yum, yum, yum), we took the train today up the coast to Hue.
Actually, we took a taxi to the Cham ruins at My Son ("mee sun"), followed by Danang train station, followed by the train to Hue. Coincidentally, I am reading Andrew Pham's return-to-Vietnam book "Catfish and Mandala," in which a German tourist describes these very ruins (a World Heritage Site) as "a pile of bricks surrounded by extortionists." This is not QUITE fair, though there is an aspect of Vietnamese culture, prominent though not universal, that seems to treats Western tourists as fair game for every scam in every way. (A taxi driver will look you in the eye and demand ten times the proper fare up front. When you say 'no meter, no taxi,' he will either shrug and walk away or shrug and turn on the meter. Then he will take you a long way round after trying to take you to his brother's hotel first. Of course, Vietnam is a very poor country - but it's interesting that in Cambodia and Lao, which are even poorer, this just doesn't happen.)
Anyway, My Son was a steam bath, and not MUCH more than a very large and very old brick pile, but atmospheric and beautiful in its way. The Cham culture was heavily Indian-influenced and flourished for a thousand years before being absorbed by the Vietnamese in the 15th century. 40 years ago there was a lot here, but the Viet Cong used the ruins as a base and the USAF then bombed the *%$@ out of them. The butterflies (dozens of species, mostly huge) were in a way more interesting than the ruins.
The Danang - Hue stretch of the train line lived up to its reputation as the most scenic in the country, clinging improbably to cliffs along the coast. Alas the train and its windows were so dirty that we experienced the vista as through a light fog. We were in "Foreigner" class (yes, really) - though 2/3 of the people were Vietnamese. Foreigner class here means that only some of the seats are broken - it was pretty seedy.
Sure enough, on arrival we had to pick the semi-honest from the total bandits among the taxi guys ("Bad hotel. I have much better. Special price.") But we made it into town and have just had good Shrimp Pho and other goodies at a hole-in-the-wall across the street from our hotel. K+R started with the induldence of an iced gin; A+D finished with the indulgence of an ice cream.
And so, to quote Samuel Pepys, to bed.
Actually, we took a taxi to the Cham ruins at My Son ("mee sun"), followed by Danang train station, followed by the train to Hue. Coincidentally, I am reading Andrew Pham's return-to-Vietnam book "Catfish and Mandala," in which a German tourist describes these very ruins (a World Heritage Site) as "a pile of bricks surrounded by extortionists." This is not QUITE fair, though there is an aspect of Vietnamese culture, prominent though not universal, that seems to treats Western tourists as fair game for every scam in every way. (A taxi driver will look you in the eye and demand ten times the proper fare up front. When you say 'no meter, no taxi,' he will either shrug and walk away or shrug and turn on the meter. Then he will take you a long way round after trying to take you to his brother's hotel first. Of course, Vietnam is a very poor country - but it's interesting that in Cambodia and Lao, which are even poorer, this just doesn't happen.)
Anyway, My Son was a steam bath, and not MUCH more than a very large and very old brick pile, but atmospheric and beautiful in its way. The Cham culture was heavily Indian-influenced and flourished for a thousand years before being absorbed by the Vietnamese in the 15th century. 40 years ago there was a lot here, but the Viet Cong used the ruins as a base and the USAF then bombed the *%$@ out of them. The butterflies (dozens of species, mostly huge) were in a way more interesting than the ruins.
The Danang - Hue stretch of the train line lived up to its reputation as the most scenic in the country, clinging improbably to cliffs along the coast. Alas the train and its windows were so dirty that we experienced the vista as through a light fog. We were in "Foreigner" class (yes, really) - though 2/3 of the people were Vietnamese. Foreigner class here means that only some of the seats are broken - it was pretty seedy.
Sure enough, on arrival we had to pick the semi-honest from the total bandits among the taxi guys ("Bad hotel. I have much better. Special price.") But we made it into town and have just had good Shrimp Pho and other goodies at a hole-in-the-wall across the street from our hotel. K+R started with the induldence of an iced gin; A+D finished with the indulgence of an ice cream.
And so, to quote Samuel Pepys, to bed.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
"And then my stomach said 'too much information'"
Declan, describing our dinner: "I tried a few bites of the soup, which tasted ok at first, but then tasted gross. So I ate a beef roll, and then my stomach said 'too much information' and I had to stop and wait until I decided what was making me queasy."
Earlier today we ran into a New Zealand couple we've bumped into a few times in Vietnam (we're on basically the same tourist path from Dalat to Na Trang to Hoi An), and they said they'd had a fabulous meal ("the best curry we've ever eaten") at a restaurant called The Secret Garden. A little pricey, they said, but only by local standards, and a truly amazing meal in a gorgeous setting.
How could we resist?
And it's true, the setting was gorgeous. Getting to it was part of the fun, as it involved walking down a very narrow alley way between two rows of houses, into a part of the block we would never have guessed existed. Inside the gate to the restaurant was an elegant garden, with fish pond, white cloth covered tables, and lanterns. The menu featured vietnamese food, with an upmarket flair.
But...the Star Fruit Soup (the "really gross" one) had none of the promised star fruit (nor any of the promised pineapple), just a bland broth with an aftertaste of latrine. When we complained (after several of the other dishes proved to be equally disappointing), they took the bowl back to the kitchen, stuck some pineapple into it, fluffed up the chunkies, and brought it back to the table with the admonition that "star fruit not in season".
The grilled eggplant tasted good, but Richard and I realized upon simultaneous mouthfuls that the shrimp on top were not cooked. The seafood curry was also bland, and included precisely two shrimps and one small piece of squid. There were more tomato chunks than seafood. Lest one think that shrimp are expensive ingredients to be served sparingly, yesterday we had delicious ban xeo (crepe-like savory pancakes) with half a dozen shrimp each for only $2. The beef rolls were ok, but very chewy and rather gamey. The spring rolls, which Richard ordered in his pursuit of the best, had a delicate exterior, described as "fresh rice pasta", but a gritty, dry internal texture reminiscent of hard boiled egg yolk. I'm still not sure how you can get that texture from tofu, carrots, tree ear, lettuce and herbs.
All in all, the meal was pretty bad. But, in good news, earlier in the day we had discovered a great bakery. So we got the check (quibbled over being charged for water that had never been served), and headed off to sweet paradise. Two scoops of ice cream for Declan (cinnamon and chocolate chip), passion fruit sorbet for Richard, lemon tart for me, and chocolate truffle cake for Aidan ("wow, that was just like eating a softball size truffle. I might be sick later but what a way to go").
Earlier today we ran into a New Zealand couple we've bumped into a few times in Vietnam (we're on basically the same tourist path from Dalat to Na Trang to Hoi An), and they said they'd had a fabulous meal ("the best curry we've ever eaten") at a restaurant called The Secret Garden. A little pricey, they said, but only by local standards, and a truly amazing meal in a gorgeous setting.
How could we resist?
And it's true, the setting was gorgeous. Getting to it was part of the fun, as it involved walking down a very narrow alley way between two rows of houses, into a part of the block we would never have guessed existed. Inside the gate to the restaurant was an elegant garden, with fish pond, white cloth covered tables, and lanterns. The menu featured vietnamese food, with an upmarket flair.
But...the Star Fruit Soup (the "really gross" one) had none of the promised star fruit (nor any of the promised pineapple), just a bland broth with an aftertaste of latrine. When we complained (after several of the other dishes proved to be equally disappointing), they took the bowl back to the kitchen, stuck some pineapple into it, fluffed up the chunkies, and brought it back to the table with the admonition that "star fruit not in season".
The grilled eggplant tasted good, but Richard and I realized upon simultaneous mouthfuls that the shrimp on top were not cooked. The seafood curry was also bland, and included precisely two shrimps and one small piece of squid. There were more tomato chunks than seafood. Lest one think that shrimp are expensive ingredients to be served sparingly, yesterday we had delicious ban xeo (crepe-like savory pancakes) with half a dozen shrimp each for only $2. The beef rolls were ok, but very chewy and rather gamey. The spring rolls, which Richard ordered in his pursuit of the best, had a delicate exterior, described as "fresh rice pasta", but a gritty, dry internal texture reminiscent of hard boiled egg yolk. I'm still not sure how you can get that texture from tofu, carrots, tree ear, lettuce and herbs.
All in all, the meal was pretty bad. But, in good news, earlier in the day we had discovered a great bakery. So we got the check (quibbled over being charged for water that had never been served), and headed off to sweet paradise. Two scoops of ice cream for Declan (cinnamon and chocolate chip), passion fruit sorbet for Richard, lemon tart for me, and chocolate truffle cake for Aidan ("wow, that was just like eating a softball size truffle. I might be sick later but what a way to go").
Food in Vietnam
After falling in love with Khmer food in Cambodia, and feeling at best very ambivalent about Lao food, and being hugely disappointed with much of the food we found in Thailand, I'm just delighted to be here, eating among other things Pho (noodle soup), crispy wontons, endless varieties of noodle salad, and Bahn Mi (literally 'bread with...', a mini-baguette filled with anything from butter and jam to slices of roast pork and fresh cucumber). I am also on a mission to find the best fresh (not fried, which aren't bad either) shrimp spring rolls in Vietnam: I order them whenever they are on the menu. Always with peanut sauce, but each peanut sauce tastes different.
The Vietnamese food tastes so fresh, and does a brilliant job of what I think Thai food is best at in theory - taking bland, simple bases and studding them with little explosions of bright flavor - ginger, mint, chili, shrimp, onion, galangal.
Oh, and the beer is really cheap, but if you want to get seriously incompetent in a hurry there's Hanoi Vodka. Which, unfortunately, is pretty good.
The Vietnamese food tastes so fresh, and does a brilliant job of what I think Thai food is best at in theory - taking bland, simple bases and studding them with little explosions of bright flavor - ginger, mint, chili, shrimp, onion, galangal.
Oh, and the beer is really cheap, but if you want to get seriously incompetent in a hurry there's Hanoi Vodka. Which, unfortunately, is pretty good.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Hoi An
We have done so much in the last few days, it's hard to know where to start. In short, we took a long bus ride from Dalat down to Na Trang. It's only 130 or so kilometers, and took nearly 6 hours. Snoozing wasn't really even possible, since the driver seemed to particularly enjoy hitting potholes. He also blasted his horn at every possible opportunity. (But that's just par for the course here, everyone blasts their horns constantly.) Na Trang was nothing special, though we had an excellent visit to a museum dedicated to the life and work of Alexander Yersin, a French man who lived in Vietnam and discovered the microbe that causes bubonic plague. One of the items on display in the museum was a letter to his mother in which he says, among other things, that he "encloses some bottles containing samples from the buboes of plague sufferers, wash your hands after reading this letter."
We spent a little time getting pummeled by the waves on the beach, and then took a night train to Hoi An. We arrived just before 5 this morning, sat outside a hotel until it opened at 6, left our luggage until we could check in at 11, and wandered the city. It's very picturesque, but we're headed for naps now. More later.
We spent a little time getting pummeled by the waves on the beach, and then took a night train to Hoi An. We arrived just before 5 this morning, sat outside a hotel until it opened at 6, left our luggage until we could check in at 11, and wandered the city. It's very picturesque, but we're headed for naps now. More later.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Guacamole--and Artichoke Tea
So after a little dinking around on the web, I found a blog post in which someone raved about the cold beer and chips at the Pro Shop at the Dalat Golf Club. So...after a fun touristy ride on a small train and back, and a long walk (made longer by getting slightly lost) through some very nice residential areas, we found the pro shop. And yes, they had guacamole. It wasn't the best I've ever had, and the fried flour tortilla chips were a little greasy, but I really enjoyed it. The portions were too small, but hey, I can't have everything!
Today, before renting paddle boats, we stopped for a brief refreshment break. I decided I had to finally try artichoke tea. It tasted vaguely grassy, with a slight sweet note. Nothing special, nothing revolting either. A squeeze of lime and a bit of sugar (both recommended by the waiter) resulted in a glass of sweetned lime tea.
The boys, meanwhile, ordered ice cream. Declan ordered the 4 color ice cream, but Aidan then asked the waiter what flavors it included. The list started with bean sprout and avocado. Aidan ordered chocolate, and Declan quickly changed his order.
Today, before renting paddle boats, we stopped for a brief refreshment break. I decided I had to finally try artichoke tea. It tasted vaguely grassy, with a slight sweet note. Nothing special, nothing revolting either. A squeeze of lime and a bit of sugar (both recommended by the waiter) resulted in a glass of sweetned lime tea.
The boys, meanwhile, ordered ice cream. Declan ordered the 4 color ice cream, but Aidan then asked the waiter what flavors it included. The list started with bean sprout and avocado. Aidan ordered chocolate, and Declan quickly changed his order.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Breakfast at the Dreams Hotel
Throughout the trip I have had a tough time going local for breakfast. I even like rice porridge, but somehow I need comfort and familiarity before 9.00 AM. Unfortunately the "free breakfast" at most budget hotels is green tea plus either rice porridge with salted shrimp-bits or a piece of toasted Wonderbread and a crispy deep-fried fried egg. So it has been a special delight in Dalat to be enjoying every morning what has to be the best budget-hotel free breakfast in Asia. Eggs however you want, bacon, endless crispy mini-baguettes with peanut butter (or Marmite; yay), platefuls of sliced mango, pineapple, papaya, avocado, tea and coffee... There's even a plate of fresh passionfruit every morning. (For the uninitiated: the inside of a ripe passionfruit looks like luminous snot, and is about the same consistency, and tastes divine.)
This hotel is also spotlessly clean and run by the friendliest, most helpful family in Vietnam. We don't want to leave! Buut the calendar calls and tomorrow (Monday) we will be taking the bus down to the coast at Na Trang before starting to head north by train for Dalat / Hoi An, then Hue, then Hanoi and Halong Bay. Having thought 3 1/2 weeks in Vietnam was almost too much, we are already making decisions about not doing X or Y so that there's time for Z, and greedily wishing we had another couple of weeks here.
This hotel is also spotlessly clean and run by the friendliest, most helpful family in Vietnam. We don't want to leave! Buut the calendar calls and tomorrow (Monday) we will be taking the bus down to the coast at Na Trang before starting to head north by train for Dalat / Hoi An, then Hue, then Hanoi and Halong Bay. Having thought 3 1/2 weeks in Vietnam was almost too much, we are already making decisions about not doing X or Y so that there's time for Z, and greedily wishing we had another couple of weeks here.
Probability
If Mom is doing the homeschooling, and Declan is working on calculating probabilities, what is the probability that after 2 hours Declan retreats to his bed and pulls the covers over his head? Is it higher or lower than the probability that Mom orders a gin before dinner? Does interrupting the work on probability to determine whether Aidan correctly calculated whether Maggie, walking at 70 meters per minute, will pass Ming, walking at4o meters per minute, on their way to school in the morning, increase the likelihood that Mom will order two gins before dinner?
Friday, April 3, 2009
Hiking in Dalat
We set out today to find a mountain to hike. With the help of the woman at the front desk, we planned a route that had a taxi dropping us at the trailhead so we could hike to the top. Then back down, walk up the road to a restaurant where we could hire a boat to take us across the lake, where we could pick up the cable car that would return us to within a few kilometers of the city.
Other than not managing to find the trail up the mountain, and there being no boats, everything worked great.
In fact, we had a gorgeous 2 hour ramble through the countryside, skirting the edges of several smaller hills and admiring the farms carved out of the hillside. The foliage is mostly pine trees, with grass and rhodies underneath. Large butterflies flitted around the wetter areas. After this lovely meandering walk, we returned to the road, and headed to where the boats were supposed to be. Unfortunately, they can't be hired there. But we were able to eat our sandwiches while watching the lake, and then the nice folks at the restaurant called a taxi for us. 15 minutes later, a driver showed up, and drove us around the lake to the top of the cable car. The 2.6km long ride was stunning. It was amazing to be over the tops of the pine trees and see the hills all spread out around us. (The cable car was built in the mid-1990s, and felt clean, modern, and most important of all, safe and well maintained.) From the other end, it was a quick taxi back to our hotel. I'm now sipping tea and the boys are doing homework.
As an aside, we are reveling in the weather here. It is between 75 and 80, with very low humidity (except during the late afternoon downpours). We are wearing long pants and fleece jackets, and loving the strange sensation of walking inside to be warm, rather than to find air con.
Other than not managing to find the trail up the mountain, and there being no boats, everything worked great.
In fact, we had a gorgeous 2 hour ramble through the countryside, skirting the edges of several smaller hills and admiring the farms carved out of the hillside. The foliage is mostly pine trees, with grass and rhodies underneath. Large butterflies flitted around the wetter areas. After this lovely meandering walk, we returned to the road, and headed to where the boats were supposed to be. Unfortunately, they can't be hired there. But we were able to eat our sandwiches while watching the lake, and then the nice folks at the restaurant called a taxi for us. 15 minutes later, a driver showed up, and drove us around the lake to the top of the cable car. The 2.6km long ride was stunning. It was amazing to be over the tops of the pine trees and see the hills all spread out around us. (The cable car was built in the mid-1990s, and felt clean, modern, and most important of all, safe and well maintained.) From the other end, it was a quick taxi back to our hotel. I'm now sipping tea and the boys are doing homework.
As an aside, we are reveling in the weather here. It is between 75 and 80, with very low humidity (except during the late afternoon downpours). We are wearing long pants and fleece jackets, and loving the strange sensation of walking inside to be warm, rather than to find air con.
Artichoke frustration
Dalat has the most amazing produce we've seen in any markets. All the Asian vegs, familiar and unfamiliar, but also beautiful red cabbages, zucchinis, avocados, and artichokes. The artichokes are huge, and look fabulous. But can I find them in any of the restaurants? No. I have asked several times, and have been told they could make artichoke tea, or artichoke milk shakes, but that they won't/don't cook them any other way. Arrgh. I'm fantasizing about steamed artichokes with butter and garlic.
And the avocados. You'd think some enterprising person would have figured out that western tourists would pay big money for avocados on their salads, or for guacamole. Nope. Avocado is an option at breakfast, and I've been mashing it into my baguette, but the only place we've seen it on menus is as a milk shake.
And the avocados. You'd think some enterprising person would have figured out that western tourists would pay big money for avocados on their salads, or for guacamole. Nope. Avocado is an option at breakfast, and I've been mashing it into my baguette, but the only place we've seen it on menus is as a milk shake.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
From my Notebook: Traditional Theater in SE Asia
Last night (ok, this was in Bangkok about a week ago) we went to a traditional Thai puppet show. The theater was running a section of the Thai Ramayana, the Ramakian. The Ramayana is originally from India, and contains some 6,000 verses. The Ramakian is based on the Ramayana.
The theater [called "Traditional Thai Puppet Theater(Joe Louis)"] was performing the story of the birth of Ganesha, the elephant headed god. The story runs like this: Before the beginning of the play, Satee, the consort of the Chief of the Gods, Isuan, dies. In grief, Isuan becomes a recluse and ascetic. The play opens with the Chief Demon, Taraka, petitioning Brahma, a senior god, to make him invincible, so that he might replace Isuan as master of heaven. Brahma eventually consents on the condition that the son of Isuan be able to kill Taraka. Taraka, seeing that Isuan is a childless ascetic, agrees to the condition.l
Upon obtaining his powers, Taraka invades heaven with an army of demons. The defense fails, and Indra, anothe senior god, flees to warn Isuan. First, he tells Brahma.
The scene changes. Uma, Satee's reincarnation, approaches Isuan and gives him a garland of flowers. Karmathep, god of love, shoots his arrow and Isuan and Uma fall in love. They go back to the kingdom together. Taraka, by an unexplained plot twist, has abandoned his attack on the kingdom of heaven, for the moment.
In the next scene, Isuan is preparing to go on a retreat and gives Uma a 5 pointed spear with which to defend heaven. During Isuan's absence, the demons invade again. Uma's lady in waiting sees the gods losing, and advises Uma to retreat to her bedroom and bar the doors. Uma does so. Next, she creates a child from her sweat, as she bathes in the waters of Konkka, the goddess of water. She names the child Kumarn, and instructs him to guard the doors with the 5 pointed spear.
Scene changes. Isuan and Visukam, another god, return from their retreat to find their way blocked by Kumarn. Visukam attempts to chase him away, and nearly gets killed, which enrages Isuan. He throws his trident, and severs his son's head. It is at this point that Uma appears, and she is not happy. Her grief turns to anger, causing her to turn into Kali, who is a four armed, seriously ugly, scary, angry woman. Isuan is horrified by the transformation, and promises to return the boy to life. He instructs Visukam to go north, and to bring him the head of the first living thing he finds lying down with its head pointed west.
In the next scene Visukam returns with an elephant head, Isuan reattaches it to his son, and renames him Ganesha. Indra and Ganesha leave to fight the demons. The scene changes and Indra enters with Ganesha. They destroy the demon army, and Taraka appears. He refuses to believe Ganesha is Isuan's son, as last he knew Isuan was living by himself in the mountains in a cave. Ganesha summons a naga (a many headed snake) to hold Taraka while they fight, and kills him with the five pointed spear. In the final scene Ganesha is venerated as a god of success and a patron of learning.
I was intrigued that the god of love carried a bow and shot arrows to make people fall in love. This might be 200 years of western influence showing itself, or it might be merely a coincidence. It didn't seem that the other gods bore any relation to their western counterparts, since they didn't really even appear to have western counterparts. Zeus and Jupiter throw lightening bolts, and Isuan hides in a cave in the mountains. Alternately, Hera throws a lot of lightening bolts and Uma retreats into her bedroom and bars the doors.
When Uma turned into Kali, there was a puff of smoke and a flash of light elsewhere on the stage to draw your eyes away from the puppet. This allowed for the puppeteers to change puppets, so that they could have the much bigger, and four armed, Kali, instead of the smaller two armed Uma.
I was interested by the fact that the puppeteers were clearly meant to be part of the show, but they were in uniform, not constume. Each puppet had three puppeteers, one controlling the feet, another controlling the head and body, and the third controlling the arms. The three puppeteers carried the puppet around the stage, and moved with it, stepping as the puppet stepped. The puppeteers wore traditional Thai outfits made from black cloth. There was one occurrence of an actual costume, which was when Taraka appeared after the vanquishing of the demon army. At that point, he was represented by a dancer in costume, as showing his death would have been too difficult to portray with a puppet.
In Cambodia, we saw a traditional dance. In truth, we saw a collection of dances in Cambodia: a palace dance, a fishing village dance, and a section of the Cambodian Ramayana. It was interesting how pronounced the differences were between the different dance styles in Cambodia, so it surprised me that the Thai puppets looked like miniature Cambodian dancers. Indeed the one dancer in the puppet show could have stepped right out of the Cambodian Ramayana. An aspect of Cambodian dance which is very important is the hand position; long fingers arched backwards and hands and wrists moved gracefully and deliberately. The Thai puppets had the same hand form. The feet of the puppeteers moved very deliberately too, much like the feet of the palace dancers. Indeed these similarities were pronounced enough, that I was surprised when we saw the water puppets in Vietnam, and they bore no resemblance to the Thai puppets or Cambodian dancers. If I stop to think about it, it's probably not that surprising, since back in the old days (1000 plus years ago), the Khmer ruled both Thailand and Cambodia, but I don't think they controlled Vietnam. Also, the Vietnamese puppets were not part of a Ramayana, so the stories, gods and people were not the same. I'll write more about the Vietnamese puppets later.
The theater [called "Traditional Thai Puppet Theater(Joe Louis)"] was performing the story of the birth of Ganesha, the elephant headed god. The story runs like this: Before the beginning of the play, Satee, the consort of the Chief of the Gods, Isuan, dies. In grief, Isuan becomes a recluse and ascetic. The play opens with the Chief Demon, Taraka, petitioning Brahma, a senior god, to make him invincible, so that he might replace Isuan as master of heaven. Brahma eventually consents on the condition that the son of Isuan be able to kill Taraka. Taraka, seeing that Isuan is a childless ascetic, agrees to the condition.l
Upon obtaining his powers, Taraka invades heaven with an army of demons. The defense fails, and Indra, anothe senior god, flees to warn Isuan. First, he tells Brahma.
The scene changes. Uma, Satee's reincarnation, approaches Isuan and gives him a garland of flowers. Karmathep, god of love, shoots his arrow and Isuan and Uma fall in love. They go back to the kingdom together. Taraka, by an unexplained plot twist, has abandoned his attack on the kingdom of heaven, for the moment.
In the next scene, Isuan is preparing to go on a retreat and gives Uma a 5 pointed spear with which to defend heaven. During Isuan's absence, the demons invade again. Uma's lady in waiting sees the gods losing, and advises Uma to retreat to her bedroom and bar the doors. Uma does so. Next, she creates a child from her sweat, as she bathes in the waters of Konkka, the goddess of water. She names the child Kumarn, and instructs him to guard the doors with the 5 pointed spear.
Scene changes. Isuan and Visukam, another god, return from their retreat to find their way blocked by Kumarn. Visukam attempts to chase him away, and nearly gets killed, which enrages Isuan. He throws his trident, and severs his son's head. It is at this point that Uma appears, and she is not happy. Her grief turns to anger, causing her to turn into Kali, who is a four armed, seriously ugly, scary, angry woman. Isuan is horrified by the transformation, and promises to return the boy to life. He instructs Visukam to go north, and to bring him the head of the first living thing he finds lying down with its head pointed west.
In the next scene Visukam returns with an elephant head, Isuan reattaches it to his son, and renames him Ganesha. Indra and Ganesha leave to fight the demons. The scene changes and Indra enters with Ganesha. They destroy the demon army, and Taraka appears. He refuses to believe Ganesha is Isuan's son, as last he knew Isuan was living by himself in the mountains in a cave. Ganesha summons a naga (a many headed snake) to hold Taraka while they fight, and kills him with the five pointed spear. In the final scene Ganesha is venerated as a god of success and a patron of learning.
I was intrigued that the god of love carried a bow and shot arrows to make people fall in love. This might be 200 years of western influence showing itself, or it might be merely a coincidence. It didn't seem that the other gods bore any relation to their western counterparts, since they didn't really even appear to have western counterparts. Zeus and Jupiter throw lightening bolts, and Isuan hides in a cave in the mountains. Alternately, Hera throws a lot of lightening bolts and Uma retreats into her bedroom and bars the doors.
When Uma turned into Kali, there was a puff of smoke and a flash of light elsewhere on the stage to draw your eyes away from the puppet. This allowed for the puppeteers to change puppets, so that they could have the much bigger, and four armed, Kali, instead of the smaller two armed Uma.
I was interested by the fact that the puppeteers were clearly meant to be part of the show, but they were in uniform, not constume. Each puppet had three puppeteers, one controlling the feet, another controlling the head and body, and the third controlling the arms. The three puppeteers carried the puppet around the stage, and moved with it, stepping as the puppet stepped. The puppeteers wore traditional Thai outfits made from black cloth. There was one occurrence of an actual costume, which was when Taraka appeared after the vanquishing of the demon army. At that point, he was represented by a dancer in costume, as showing his death would have been too difficult to portray with a puppet.
In Cambodia, we saw a traditional dance. In truth, we saw a collection of dances in Cambodia: a palace dance, a fishing village dance, and a section of the Cambodian Ramayana. It was interesting how pronounced the differences were between the different dance styles in Cambodia, so it surprised me that the Thai puppets looked like miniature Cambodian dancers. Indeed the one dancer in the puppet show could have stepped right out of the Cambodian Ramayana. An aspect of Cambodian dance which is very important is the hand position; long fingers arched backwards and hands and wrists moved gracefully and deliberately. The Thai puppets had the same hand form. The feet of the puppeteers moved very deliberately too, much like the feet of the palace dancers. Indeed these similarities were pronounced enough, that I was surprised when we saw the water puppets in Vietnam, and they bore no resemblance to the Thai puppets or Cambodian dancers. If I stop to think about it, it's probably not that surprising, since back in the old days (1000 plus years ago), the Khmer ruled both Thailand and Cambodia, but I don't think they controlled Vietnam. Also, the Vietnamese puppets were not part of a Ramayana, so the stories, gods and people were not the same. I'll write more about the Vietnamese puppets later.
Breakfast
Breakfast in our hotel in Dalat is so good! It consists of all you can eat fruit, bacon, ham, baguette, tomato, avocado, vegemite, marmite, peanut butter, yogurt, cheese, butter, and jam and tea or coffee. Also you can get two eggs, any style, and passionfruit juice.
My favorite fruit is passion fruit, which when it is ripe is basically liquid. And the seeds go down as easily as liquid. The watermelon and pineapple are battling for second place on the favorite fruit list. I like the mangoes too, but not the dragonfruit. Personally, vegemite, marmite and peanut butter are disgusting. Something that makes me so happy is that the eggs don't have brown crispy bits that most Asian eggs have. Almost all the fried eggs I've gotten in Asia have brown, metalic tasting crispy bits on the bottoms, and lots of the scrambled eggs are cooked so they have brown bits too. These eggs were soft and eggy tasting. I ate passion fruit, some watermelon, some pineapple, some bacon, a baguette, two scrambled eggs, and drank a glass of passionfruit juice and a cup of tea.
My favorite fruit is passion fruit, which when it is ripe is basically liquid. And the seeds go down as easily as liquid. The watermelon and pineapple are battling for second place on the favorite fruit list. I like the mangoes too, but not the dragonfruit. Personally, vegemite, marmite and peanut butter are disgusting. Something that makes me so happy is that the eggs don't have brown crispy bits that most Asian eggs have. Almost all the fried eggs I've gotten in Asia have brown, metalic tasting crispy bits on the bottoms, and lots of the scrambled eggs are cooked so they have brown bits too. These eggs were soft and eggy tasting. I ate passion fruit, some watermelon, some pineapple, some bacon, a baguette, two scrambled eggs, and drank a glass of passionfruit juice and a cup of tea.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
In Dalat
Thanks for the comments on commenting, which we are indeed receiving. We have exactly no idea why this is set up to be so difficult. It should be straightforward and we are trying to make it so but no luck so far. Choosing an anonymous profile apparently helps. Blogger, like all Google products, is easy to use when it works but impossible to work out how to fix when it doesn't.
Anyway, we arrived yesterday in Dalat, in Vietnam's Central Highlands, after a 7-hour bus ride from Saigon. After two days spent drenched in sweat from the mere effort of breathing, it's like landing on another planet: low humidity and temps around 25 C / 75 F, with PINE trees and rather northwest-looking flowerbeds. Also the town is very hilly and had a lot of slanted roofs and spired Catholic churches - squint and you could be in the foothills of the Austrian alps.
I just posted a couple of very cool photos from a smoky Chinese Buddhist temple which we visited in Saigon. In the dim depths, with no light but a few shafts on sunlight through holes in the roof, the temperature plunged to only about 32 C/ 90 F.
Anyway, we arrived yesterday in Dalat, in Vietnam's Central Highlands, after a 7-hour bus ride from Saigon. After two days spent drenched in sweat from the mere effort of breathing, it's like landing on another planet: low humidity and temps around 25 C / 75 F, with PINE trees and rather northwest-looking flowerbeds. Also the town is very hilly and had a lot of slanted roofs and spired Catholic churches - squint and you could be in the foothills of the Austrian alps.
I just posted a couple of very cool photos from a smoky Chinese Buddhist temple which we visited in Saigon. In the dim depths, with no light but a few shafts on sunlight through holes in the roof, the temperature plunged to only about 32 C/ 90 F.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Commenting on the blog
We're getting the sense the folks are unable to comment on the blog any more...we don't know why that is. Anyone have any ideas? Please email.
Noise
Saigon, like many cities we've been in on this trip, is very noisy. There are gazillions of motorbikes with minimal mufflers, and all cars and motorbikes use their horns nearly continuously. (It's helpful for us tourists, trying to cross the street, because the bikes seem to appear out of nowhere.) Conversation while walking is nearly impossible.
Unlike in other cities, our hotel is not a quiet oasis. We chose rooms on the top floor, because they had better windows and were further away from the road noise. What we didn't know was two-fold. First, there is major construction going on just on the other side of the wall, so the rooms are full of the sound of banging and power tools. And second, the top floor was a not-well-thought-out addition to the building, and is clad in corrugated metal, not concrete. The afternoon thunderstorms, with heavy driving rain, are nearly deafening up here.
We're off to Dalat tomorrow. We probably should spend more time in Saigon, but Dalat is in the mountains and we can't resist the lure of temperatures only in the 80s.
Unlike in other cities, our hotel is not a quiet oasis. We chose rooms on the top floor, because they had better windows and were further away from the road noise. What we didn't know was two-fold. First, there is major construction going on just on the other side of the wall, so the rooms are full of the sound of banging and power tools. And second, the top floor was a not-well-thought-out addition to the building, and is clad in corrugated metal, not concrete. The afternoon thunderstorms, with heavy driving rain, are nearly deafening up here.
We're off to Dalat tomorrow. We probably should spend more time in Saigon, but Dalat is in the mountains and we can't resist the lure of temperatures only in the 80s.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Saigon
We just got back to the hotel after a serious day's tourism in Saigon. Just in time: torrential thunderstorm now.
Last night we had a great first meal just around the corner in a place where there were no other non-Vietnamese. I got really adventurous and ordered a spiced baby clam salad - they were delicious, and I'm not sick, yet.... We also ordered "fig" salad, which tasted more like artichoke, Pho (beef noodle soup), Ban Something-or-Other (noodles with roast pork), shrimp rolls, and mustard rolls (not mustard, just rolls made from big leaves of mustard greens). All delicious and not a single thing tasted remotely like Thai food. Oh, and including sodas and Sai-Gon beer it cost $12. Afterwards we wandered the market and impulse-bought a "Tintin in Vietnam" T-shirt for me ($3) and a new watch for Declan ($5).
Today we did a walking tour, taking in some main sights very briefly, including a market where the smell of really FRESH fish reminded us of Pike Place. The traffic here is incredible, even after Delhi and Bangkok, and terrifyinng at first: THOUSANDS of 120cc Honda Wave step-through motorbikes, all beeping at once. None stops for pedestrians: you have to take a deep breath, walk directly into six or eight lanes of them, and hope they avoid you. Miraculously they do. There is simply no other way to cross a street.
We stopped to get Aidan a haircut (very professional, very friendly, $4). Then a hike past the old colonial Hotel du Ville and similar highlights included a long stop at Fanny's, allegedly Saigon's best ice cream place. (After three scoops each, A+D in no way dispute this. However, being a bit lactose intolerant, I decided to martyr myself by making do with a gorgeous fruit-stuffed crepe covered in a warm creme anglaise, plus iced Vietnamese coffee. Tough life.)
Thence to the excellent Museum of Ho Chi Minh City, which includes standard historical displays downstairs and history of the "Glorious Victory of the Revolutionary Cadres over the Imperialist Running Dogs and the Puppet Government" upstairs. It was truly interesting, here and at the Palace (below) to see how the other half sees, so to speak. And to find some elements of it, if not others, quite persuasive: the word 'communism' did so completely prevent the west from getting it about the underlying motivation - Vietnamese national pride.
We spent the afternoon at that historic 1960s landmark, Reunification Palace - which was the Presidential Palace until the North Vietnnamese tanks came right through the fence in April 1975. It's strange to think of a 19600s building as "historic" but it has all been perfectly kept, cleaned and preserved, right down to the ugly wet bar in the games room, the naugahyde-padded doors and the pale pink telephones. Even Presidet Thieu's Huey helecopter (or one just like it) is on the roof, and the tank that broke through the railings (or one just like it) is in the grounds. The whole experience is eerie: are you on a movie set, or are you in a time-warp? You feel that you might bump into Thieu and Robert MacNamara in one of the polished corridors.
Well it has stopped raining and is almost time to go hunt for dinnner.
Last night we had a great first meal just around the corner in a place where there were no other non-Vietnamese. I got really adventurous and ordered a spiced baby clam salad - they were delicious, and I'm not sick, yet.... We also ordered "fig" salad, which tasted more like artichoke, Pho (beef noodle soup), Ban Something-or-Other (noodles with roast pork), shrimp rolls, and mustard rolls (not mustard, just rolls made from big leaves of mustard greens). All delicious and not a single thing tasted remotely like Thai food. Oh, and including sodas and Sai-Gon beer it cost $12. Afterwards we wandered the market and impulse-bought a "Tintin in Vietnam" T-shirt for me ($3) and a new watch for Declan ($5).
Today we did a walking tour, taking in some main sights very briefly, including a market where the smell of really FRESH fish reminded us of Pike Place. The traffic here is incredible, even after Delhi and Bangkok, and terrifyinng at first: THOUSANDS of 120cc Honda Wave step-through motorbikes, all beeping at once. None stops for pedestrians: you have to take a deep breath, walk directly into six or eight lanes of them, and hope they avoid you. Miraculously they do. There is simply no other way to cross a street.
We stopped to get Aidan a haircut (very professional, very friendly, $4). Then a hike past the old colonial Hotel du Ville and similar highlights included a long stop at Fanny's, allegedly Saigon's best ice cream place. (After three scoops each, A+D in no way dispute this. However, being a bit lactose intolerant, I decided to martyr myself by making do with a gorgeous fruit-stuffed crepe covered in a warm creme anglaise, plus iced Vietnamese coffee. Tough life.)
Thence to the excellent Museum of Ho Chi Minh City, which includes standard historical displays downstairs and history of the "Glorious Victory of the Revolutionary Cadres over the Imperialist Running Dogs and the Puppet Government" upstairs. It was truly interesting, here and at the Palace (below) to see how the other half sees, so to speak. And to find some elements of it, if not others, quite persuasive: the word 'communism' did so completely prevent the west from getting it about the underlying motivation - Vietnamese national pride.
We spent the afternoon at that historic 1960s landmark, Reunification Palace - which was the Presidential Palace until the North Vietnnamese tanks came right through the fence in April 1975. It's strange to think of a 19600s building as "historic" but it has all been perfectly kept, cleaned and preserved, right down to the ugly wet bar in the games room, the naugahyde-padded doors and the pale pink telephones. Even Presidet Thieu's Huey helecopter (or one just like it) is on the roof, and the tank that broke through the railings (or one just like it) is in the grounds. The whole experience is eerie: are you on a movie set, or are you in a time-warp? You feel that you might bump into Thieu and Robert MacNamara in one of the polished corridors.
Well it has stopped raining and is almost time to go hunt for dinnner.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Welcome to Vietnam
After an uneventful Air France flight from Bangkok, we are now in Ho Chi Minh City, known to all but the officials as Saigon. We have found a nice hotel, and have rooms on the 7th floor. When we were in NY we regularly walked up to our rooms on the 5th floor--I walked up to our rooms today, and it was sure a lot harder than it was in December. Too much eating and not enough exercise!
Speaking of eating, we're on our way out to see what cheap Vietnamese food offers. We'll let you know.
Speaking of eating, we're on our way out to see what cheap Vietnamese food offers. We'll let you know.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Reading
Greg left Aidan with a copy of David Halberstam's The Coldest Winter, about America and the Korean War. It sat in one of our bags for a while, being a bit intimidating at 700+ pages, but I finally decided I "ought" to read it and was immediately hooked. A brilliant talent for weaving very particular stories (what happened to Platoon X on Hill Y on the night of Z) with larger scale (McArthur) and much larger scale (Truman / Mao / Stalin) themes.
Like many people, Halberstam is a big fan of Truman. My own view is that Truman was a good man in many ways but fatally weak (don't get me started on the Hiroshima decision, the published defenses of which are completely laughable special pleading), and that he has (having been underrated as a President at the time) been much overrated since. I also think the standard line on McArthur (great general, great flaws) is harder to sustain than Halberstam admits, both because his indisputably bad calls were SO numerous and SO bad, and because a case can be made that the great 'victories' (especially Inchon) were themselves examples of objectively terrible decision-making combined with incredible luck. As Halberstam says, Truman was right about one thing: democracies need to work very very hard to protect themselves from 'patriots' of this stamp - but a lot of dead men in Korea might say Truman did too little of that and far too late. It seems to me that Marshall was a far, far greater American than either of them.
Excellent book, anyway. Coincidentally, I had just finished Neal Stephenson's big, brilliant, baggy, broken-backed Cryptonomicon, a chunk of which is about McArthur and WWII. Very strange reading experience: I loved the several different WWII strands, and hated to the point of unreadability the twentieth century part, with its talkative cardboard techies based in Seattle in the 1990s and trying to make a killing in the data cable business in the Philippines. Some of the WWII writing is brilliant, including a long section relating the experiences of a Japanese character who is shipwrecked, nearly burned alive, nearly drowned, nearly eaten by sharks, and finally enslaved by New Guinea cannibals. It’s actually funny, in a way that perfectly expresses the surreal yet completely believable horror of his experiences. The book seemed to me self-indulgent and too long, yet Stevenson’s ear for that place between horror and humor (and between reality and fantasy) is remarkable.
I just bought (for one of our e-books) a couple of suspense classics from my teenage reading, Erskine Childers’ The Riddle of the Sands and John Buchan’s The Thirty Nine Steps. It will be interesting to see how they hold up.
Like many people, Halberstam is a big fan of Truman. My own view is that Truman was a good man in many ways but fatally weak (don't get me started on the Hiroshima decision, the published defenses of which are completely laughable special pleading), and that he has (having been underrated as a President at the time) been much overrated since. I also think the standard line on McArthur (great general, great flaws) is harder to sustain than Halberstam admits, both because his indisputably bad calls were SO numerous and SO bad, and because a case can be made that the great 'victories' (especially Inchon) were themselves examples of objectively terrible decision-making combined with incredible luck. As Halberstam says, Truman was right about one thing: democracies need to work very very hard to protect themselves from 'patriots' of this stamp - but a lot of dead men in Korea might say Truman did too little of that and far too late. It seems to me that Marshall was a far, far greater American than either of them.
Excellent book, anyway. Coincidentally, I had just finished Neal Stephenson's big, brilliant, baggy, broken-backed Cryptonomicon, a chunk of which is about McArthur and WWII. Very strange reading experience: I loved the several different WWII strands, and hated to the point of unreadability the twentieth century part, with its talkative cardboard techies based in Seattle in the 1990s and trying to make a killing in the data cable business in the Philippines. Some of the WWII writing is brilliant, including a long section relating the experiences of a Japanese character who is shipwrecked, nearly burned alive, nearly drowned, nearly eaten by sharks, and finally enslaved by New Guinea cannibals. It’s actually funny, in a way that perfectly expresses the surreal yet completely believable horror of his experiences. The book seemed to me self-indulgent and too long, yet Stevenson’s ear for that place between horror and humor (and between reality and fantasy) is remarkable.
I just bought (for one of our e-books) a couple of suspense classics from my teenage reading, Erskine Childers’ The Riddle of the Sands and John Buchan’s The Thirty Nine Steps. It will be interesting to see how they hold up.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Ayuthaya
We visited Ayuthaya last week. Ayuthaya was the first capitol of Thailand, from 1350 to 1767. The capitol was moved to Sukhothai after the Burmese sacked the city of Ayuthaya in 1767. Now there is a modern city and a big ruin complex.
We went to Ayuthaya the expensive way, tour group. Instead of going straight to Ayuthaya, which we would have done if we'd gone by train, our bus stopped at the Royal Summer Palace first. The Royal Summer Palace only has two asian style buildings, the rest are western style. It was built by King Chula in the early 1900s, after he went on a trip to Europe. The King who built it had 70 some odd wives, and roughly the same number of kids. Because he had so many kids and wives, there are a lot of houses on the grounds. Also at the palace, there is a memorial to all his children who died when they were still young, and to a wife who died because of his own law. The law was that the royal family was untouchable. So, when the barge carrying the queen to the summer palace sank, nobody dared touch her to save her from drowning, so she died. Later the king changed the law.
After seeing the palace, we drove to the main Ayuthaya ruin complex. At the main ruin complex, you can ride an elephant if you want to (we didn't). There are a lot of ruins and decapitated buddhas. The buddhas are decapitated because when the Burmese sacked the city, they cut off all the heads of the buddhas to find the gold ones.
It's not all ruins though. There is a working wat too. The wat was destroyed when the Burmese sacked Ayuthaya, eventually one of the Thai queens restored it. A while after restoring it, the queen decided the buddha inside should be covered in gold leaf. Nowadays the wat has many people, farang and locals, praying to or looking at the magnificent, if dusty, buddha.
After the main ruin complex, we drove to the ruins which are famous for the buddha head in the bodhi tree roots. We slipped away from the guide to look at the ruins on our own. Mom tried to take a picture of the rest of us on a grassy patch on one of the ruins, but a tour guide who probably didn't have any authority at all told us to get down. We discovered the sign saying "don't climb" on the other side. After those ruins, we went for a very short stop at a reclining buddha who was covered in so much cloth you could probably clothe about 1,433 people if you use one square yard of cloth per person.
After the ruins we drove through a lightening storm (with lots of rain), to a boat which had a buffet lunch. We went down the river to Bangkok on the boat. Being on the river was fun, especially since after lunch I went up and sat on the deck right above the driver. The river was quite crowded, and there were a lot of really small boats towing very large almost overfilled barges.
We went to Ayuthaya the expensive way, tour group. Instead of going straight to Ayuthaya, which we would have done if we'd gone by train, our bus stopped at the Royal Summer Palace first. The Royal Summer Palace only has two asian style buildings, the rest are western style. It was built by King Chula in the early 1900s, after he went on a trip to Europe. The King who built it had 70 some odd wives, and roughly the same number of kids. Because he had so many kids and wives, there are a lot of houses on the grounds. Also at the palace, there is a memorial to all his children who died when they were still young, and to a wife who died because of his own law. The law was that the royal family was untouchable. So, when the barge carrying the queen to the summer palace sank, nobody dared touch her to save her from drowning, so she died. Later the king changed the law.
After seeing the palace, we drove to the main Ayuthaya ruin complex. At the main ruin complex, you can ride an elephant if you want to (we didn't). There are a lot of ruins and decapitated buddhas. The buddhas are decapitated because when the Burmese sacked the city, they cut off all the heads of the buddhas to find the gold ones.
It's not all ruins though. There is a working wat too. The wat was destroyed when the Burmese sacked Ayuthaya, eventually one of the Thai queens restored it. A while after restoring it, the queen decided the buddha inside should be covered in gold leaf. Nowadays the wat has many people, farang and locals, praying to or looking at the magnificent, if dusty, buddha.
After the main ruin complex, we drove to the ruins which are famous for the buddha head in the bodhi tree roots. We slipped away from the guide to look at the ruins on our own. Mom tried to take a picture of the rest of us on a grassy patch on one of the ruins, but a tour guide who probably didn't have any authority at all told us to get down. We discovered the sign saying "don't climb" on the other side. After those ruins, we went for a very short stop at a reclining buddha who was covered in so much cloth you could probably clothe about 1,433 people if you use one square yard of cloth per person.
After the ruins we drove through a lightening storm (with lots of rain), to a boat which had a buffet lunch. We went down the river to Bangkok on the boat. Being on the river was fun, especially since after lunch I went up and sat on the deck right above the driver. The river was quite crowded, and there were a lot of really small boats towing very large almost overfilled barges.
Food
We have all had very mixed feelings about Thai food. We came here thinking (especially R+K) that of course we LOVED Thai food. But travel broadens the mind... or changes it anyway. I remember when K and I were in Andalucia 17 (!) years ago, and had the revelation that the "Spanish food" we loved was in fact mainly a creation of cookbook writers, and had almost nothing to do with what Spanish people in fact ate. So with Thailand: in a chi-chi restaurant here you can get food not unlike what you would get in a Thai restaurant in the US - with some local additions, variations and authenticities. But what Thai people mostly eat is very different, and it can be quite hard for the farang palate to take. It's not the spiciness. On the contrary: the much-vaunted BK street food, routinely touted as the best in the world, is certainly cheap and certainly everywhere, but often it seems to be a bland and monotonous choice of greasy fried chicken, or greasy fried-chicken-flavored rice, or chicken fried noodles, or the ubiquitous very bony small grilled fish on a stick.
Perhaps we are just getting jaded. Annyway, today we completely blew the budget and the culture by eating at a (relatively) cheap sushi restaurant for lunch and then an excellent Italian restaurant for dinner. There seem to be a lot of the latter in BK for some reason. K had a porcini and truffle risotto; I had spaghettini with arugula and sausage; the boys, of course, had pizza. (And Tiramisu.)
Perhaps we are just getting jaded. Annyway, today we completely blew the budget and the culture by eating at a (relatively) cheap sushi restaurant for lunch and then an excellent Italian restaurant for dinner. There seem to be a lot of the latter in BK for some reason. K had a porcini and truffle risotto; I had spaghettini with arugula and sausage; the boys, of course, had pizza. (And Tiramisu.)
Avoiding the protests
The first really big political protests since we've been in Bangkok are getting underway, and we're staying far away. From our end of town you'd never know they were happening, but the news reports suggest there could be up to 100,000 people surrounding the govt house tomorrow. We were planning on seeing Dusit palace on our last day (tomorrow), but since it's near the govt area, we'll be coming up with an alternate plan.
Kanchanaburi
We have, not for the first time, been too busy to write. We are back in Bangkok from a two-day trip to Kanchanaburi, site of the infamous "Bridge Over the River Kwai." We went there by train, an experience in itself because the only train from BK is a very slow, old, no air-con local that took nearly 4 hours (supposedly 2 1/2) to do 150 km. With the temp at 35 C and the humidity at 95%, ALL the windows were open and it was smoky, dusty, dirty, still incredibly hot, and despite all that great fun: a real chance to see the countryside and NOT be travelling like a tourist.
Kanchanaburi is a quiet, pretty town by the river in flat rice-paddy countryside, ringed by low mountains. It's very hard to get your head around the fact that 65 years ago it was a slave labor camp. We rented bikes and visited two different POW cemeteries, both beautifully maintained, containing the graves of several thousand British, Dutch and Australian POWs who worked on the Burma railway and died of malnutrition, malaria, beri-beri, abuse and sheer overwork here. There are two excellent museums - where the point out that the POWs at least got graves (mostly) and were only about 10% of those who died: a vast force of slaves from the new Japanese territories, mostly men pulled off the streets in Malaya and China, worked and died here too and have almost evaporated from history. The conditions on the railway were simply beyond belief. There is a bar graph in one of the museums illustrating how many men of each ethnicity / nationality died, done entirey in iron railroad spikes recovered from the jungle.
On our second morning we walked across the bridge itself, which was bombed by the allies in 1945 and then repaired after the war. You can still take one of the trains that run on it up the line to Hellfire Pass and the Burmese border.
Kanchanaburi is a quiet, pretty town by the river in flat rice-paddy countryside, ringed by low mountains. It's very hard to get your head around the fact that 65 years ago it was a slave labor camp. We rented bikes and visited two different POW cemeteries, both beautifully maintained, containing the graves of several thousand British, Dutch and Australian POWs who worked on the Burma railway and died of malnutrition, malaria, beri-beri, abuse and sheer overwork here. There are two excellent museums - where the point out that the POWs at least got graves (mostly) and were only about 10% of those who died: a vast force of slaves from the new Japanese territories, mostly men pulled off the streets in Malaya and China, worked and died here too and have almost evaporated from history. The conditions on the railway were simply beyond belief. There is a bar graph in one of the museums illustrating how many men of each ethnicity / nationality died, done entirey in iron railroad spikes recovered from the jungle.
On our second morning we walked across the bridge itself, which was bombed by the allies in 1945 and then repaired after the war. You can still take one of the trains that run on it up the line to Hellfire Pass and the Burmese border.
Monday, March 23, 2009
"I licked the fish"
Declan, describing how he'd tasted nearly everything we'd ordered for dinner.
We had a very nice Thai meal at an upmarket restaurant last night. Finally, the flavors we kept thinking we'd find in Thai street food.
My personal favorite was the fish, a whole (small) sea bass with a lime and garlic sauce. Unlike most of the fish we've had/seen, it was steamed, not fried, and it was boned for us, saving us the trouble of picking it over. The grilled beef and grape salad was also delicious, with a sparkling chili, lemongrass, ginger and tamarind dressing. The grilled eggplant salad was also good, even if it was the one dish Declan refused to try. The mee krob, sweetened crispy fried rice noodles, were a good contrast to the other salty flavors. We rounded things out with a light chicken and veg soup, and fried mixed veg topped with a small bit of bacon. Veg that tasted of veg, not excessive cooking oil.
Mango smoothies for the boys, beer for us. Yum. All this, and they even called a taxi for us when we were done. Nice.
We had a very nice Thai meal at an upmarket restaurant last night. Finally, the flavors we kept thinking we'd find in Thai street food.
My personal favorite was the fish, a whole (small) sea bass with a lime and garlic sauce. Unlike most of the fish we've had/seen, it was steamed, not fried, and it was boned for us, saving us the trouble of picking it over. The grilled beef and grape salad was also delicious, with a sparkling chili, lemongrass, ginger and tamarind dressing. The grilled eggplant salad was also good, even if it was the one dish Declan refused to try. The mee krob, sweetened crispy fried rice noodles, were a good contrast to the other salty flavors. We rounded things out with a light chicken and veg soup, and fried mixed veg topped with a small bit of bacon. Veg that tasted of veg, not excessive cooking oil.
Mango smoothies for the boys, beer for us. Yum. All this, and they even called a taxi for us when we were done. Nice.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Ayuthaya
A very quick post to say that today we did a very touristy, packaged day trip to the old Thai capital at Ayuthaya. Coach there, tour-guide around the highlights, boat and buffet lunch on the way back. Not the way we normally travel, or like to, but it was a very smart choice as it turns out. I have been feeling vaguely unwell for a week - off food, very tired, generally a pain in the neck to be around - and today (a) I started the day feeling even worse, and (b) it was a billion degrees and 94% humidity. We had seriously considered going to Ayuthaya by train and renting bikes....
Ayuthaya was sacked by the Burmese in 1767, and one of its key features is miles and miles of ruined brick chedi (this is a place on the scale of Angkor) littered with headless Buddhas because the Burmese wanted a quick way to see if any of them was clay covering solid gold.
We were only at the ruins for a total of about 2 hours, when they deserve 2 days, but it was enough given the heat. And the river trip back was wonderful, including great views, a slight breeze, and a buffet lunch I actually felt like eating.
Lots of new pictures just posted.
Ayuthaya was sacked by the Burmese in 1767, and one of its key features is miles and miles of ruined brick chedi (this is a place on the scale of Angkor) littered with headless Buddhas because the Burmese wanted a quick way to see if any of them was clay covering solid gold.
We were only at the ruins for a total of about 2 hours, when they deserve 2 days, but it was enough given the heat. And the river trip back was wonderful, including great views, a slight breeze, and a buffet lunch I actually felt like eating.
Lots of new pictures just posted.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
"WHOLE FOODS"
This post is titled Whole Foods because it is about a giant grocery store on the ground floor of the biggest shopping mall in Bangkok. There was a lot of really good looking fruits and vegetables, some individually packaged, that were very expensive. There was a container of cherries: the cherries were as big as golf balls, they looked extremely juicy and tasty but they were $15 for a package of 20.
There were lots of little stations selling different kinds of stuff, fancy rice, honey, stinky soap, 50 different kinds of hot dogs, and lots of imported Western crud.
Then there were the Thai special foods, like the fried bugs. Fried cicadas, baby locusts, bamboo worms, ant larvae, silk moth pupe and others, all of which you would need a very strong drink to wash down. Mom and I tried one of the bamboo worms that the guy said all the Chinese tourists bought. Personally, it was disgusting, and since we didn't have a drink, mom and I had to run to the fruit section and pick up a sample of a candied orange.
The fruit section lots of dried and candied fruit, some of which were extremely tasty and some of which were so disgusting, like bad marichino cherries dried and injected with terible tasting food coloring.The apricots however, were one of the better tasting fruits. We were thinking about getting a small package for Dad who wasn't feeling so great at the time, until we realized they were about $12 for 20. We ate a lot of the dried fruit though.
There were lots of little stations selling different kinds of stuff, fancy rice, honey, stinky soap, 50 different kinds of hot dogs, and lots of imported Western crud.
Then there were the Thai special foods, like the fried bugs. Fried cicadas, baby locusts, bamboo worms, ant larvae, silk moth pupe and others, all of which you would need a very strong drink to wash down. Mom and I tried one of the bamboo worms that the guy said all the Chinese tourists bought. Personally, it was disgusting, and since we didn't have a drink, mom and I had to run to the fruit section and pick up a sample of a candied orange.
The fruit section lots of dried and candied fruit, some of which were extremely tasty and some of which were so disgusting, like bad marichino cherries dried and injected with terible tasting food coloring.The apricots however, were one of the better tasting fruits. We were thinking about getting a small package for Dad who wasn't feeling so great at the time, until we realized they were about $12 for 20. We ate a lot of the dried fruit though.
Hunting for decent street food
Thus far, we have been fairly disappointed with the street food in Bangkok. Part of the problem is we haven't yet found a good source, and another part is that we don't speak enough Thai (the words for noodles, chicken, and not spicy only go so far). But it's also the case that most of what we've seen is practically all the same, regardless of where you are.
The food we've seen is as follows:
Grilled stuff on sticks. Mostly this is chicken and fish, but there are some things that are either sausages, or fishballs, or some combo thereof. The chicken is tasty, though you have to be careful to avoid the liver/gizzard sticks. We haven't had the courage to try one of the fish. They're pretty small, so they'll be very bony, and in most cases they've been sitting around unrefrigerated for some amount of time. The chicken we watch being taken out of an ice cooler and cooked in front of us over hot flame. This doesn't seem possible with the fish.
Noodle soup. The seller has a large vat of bubbling broth, and various bowls of edibles. Point to what you want, and it all goes into a bowl with broth. Problem is, the various edibles are mostly protein (much of it sausages or fish balls or other unidentifiable chopped up stuff), and there don't seem to be many vegetables. The broth tends to be overly greasy and not very appealing. We crave the bright lemon grass, lime leaf, cilantro flavors, but instead get msg and chinese 5 spice.
Fried noodles. We haven't seen many noodle stands that fry noodles. When we do find them, they tend to use quite a lot of oil, and after several meals of fried noodles, you realize that they all taste pretty much the same. Having more Thai would help I think, if we could ask for different sauces, or whether or not they have some vegetables hiding in the stall somewhere. I think that in the absence of our input, they make what they think farangs (white folks) would like, something approximating pad see euw.
Fruit. The fresh fruit is great. Right now it's mostly apples, pineapples, watermelons and mangos. The best stalls have cut fruit arrayed on a tray of ice. Point to the piece you want, and the seller scoops it out, chops it up, and serves it to you in a plastic bag with a long toothpick. Very good. You can also get fried bananas--which can be good--and fried sweet potatoes, which are great if you can find them. There are lots of strawberries in bags, but we have no way of washing them at the hotel. We have bought washed and chopped ones in a cup, but discovered, to our dismay, that instead of sugaring them, they salt them. It's true it brings out the juices, but...ugh.
Battered fried protein. Fried chicken is big. The stalls boil the chicken, then batter it, and fry it. When you order a plate, you get rice that's been cooked in the stock with salt (which tastes very different from the usual plain rice), a piece of the fried chicken that's been chopped into bite size pieces, and a bowl of the broth to use as gravy or soup, your choice. Can be good, can be pretty so so. Other batter fried protein includes shrimp (which are tossed by the handful into batter and fried, which sounds good until you realize that they still have heads and shells), chopped field crabs (which I'm told make even locals sick), and other shellfish (which don't seem to be refrigerated before cooking). (A field crab, in case you're wondering, is a small fresh water crab, about 1 inch from side to side, that lives in rice paddies. They are cooked and eaten whole or mashed up, shells and innards all.)
Green papaya salad. Can be very good, though it can also be so fishy as to be inedible. Shredded green papaya, salt, garlic, tomato, sugar, fish sauce and a few peanuts get pounded together in a mortar with chilies and maybe a green bean or two. You have to be careful, as some places add a field crab to it. The words for not spicy are important here, as the local taste seems to be for incendiary levels of chilies.
And that's what we've found. I have to believe that there is more, better food than we've located. The search will continue.
The food we've seen is as follows:
Grilled stuff on sticks. Mostly this is chicken and fish, but there are some things that are either sausages, or fishballs, or some combo thereof. The chicken is tasty, though you have to be careful to avoid the liver/gizzard sticks. We haven't had the courage to try one of the fish. They're pretty small, so they'll be very bony, and in most cases they've been sitting around unrefrigerated for some amount of time. The chicken we watch being taken out of an ice cooler and cooked in front of us over hot flame. This doesn't seem possible with the fish.
Noodle soup. The seller has a large vat of bubbling broth, and various bowls of edibles. Point to what you want, and it all goes into a bowl with broth. Problem is, the various edibles are mostly protein (much of it sausages or fish balls or other unidentifiable chopped up stuff), and there don't seem to be many vegetables. The broth tends to be overly greasy and not very appealing. We crave the bright lemon grass, lime leaf, cilantro flavors, but instead get msg and chinese 5 spice.
Fried noodles. We haven't seen many noodle stands that fry noodles. When we do find them, they tend to use quite a lot of oil, and after several meals of fried noodles, you realize that they all taste pretty much the same. Having more Thai would help I think, if we could ask for different sauces, or whether or not they have some vegetables hiding in the stall somewhere. I think that in the absence of our input, they make what they think farangs (white folks) would like, something approximating pad see euw.
Fruit. The fresh fruit is great. Right now it's mostly apples, pineapples, watermelons and mangos. The best stalls have cut fruit arrayed on a tray of ice. Point to the piece you want, and the seller scoops it out, chops it up, and serves it to you in a plastic bag with a long toothpick. Very good. You can also get fried bananas--which can be good--and fried sweet potatoes, which are great if you can find them. There are lots of strawberries in bags, but we have no way of washing them at the hotel. We have bought washed and chopped ones in a cup, but discovered, to our dismay, that instead of sugaring them, they salt them. It's true it brings out the juices, but...ugh.
Battered fried protein. Fried chicken is big. The stalls boil the chicken, then batter it, and fry it. When you order a plate, you get rice that's been cooked in the stock with salt (which tastes very different from the usual plain rice), a piece of the fried chicken that's been chopped into bite size pieces, and a bowl of the broth to use as gravy or soup, your choice. Can be good, can be pretty so so. Other batter fried protein includes shrimp (which are tossed by the handful into batter and fried, which sounds good until you realize that they still have heads and shells), chopped field crabs (which I'm told make even locals sick), and other shellfish (which don't seem to be refrigerated before cooking). (A field crab, in case you're wondering, is a small fresh water crab, about 1 inch from side to side, that lives in rice paddies. They are cooked and eaten whole or mashed up, shells and innards all.)
Green papaya salad. Can be very good, though it can also be so fishy as to be inedible. Shredded green papaya, salt, garlic, tomato, sugar, fish sauce and a few peanuts get pounded together in a mortar with chilies and maybe a green bean or two. You have to be careful, as some places add a field crab to it. The words for not spicy are important here, as the local taste seems to be for incendiary levels of chilies.
And that's what we've found. I have to believe that there is more, better food than we've located. The search will continue.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Toilets
I've been meaning for a while to put up a post about the local loos. On the whole, I've been very surprised at the cleanliness of what we've found. Granted, we've mostly availed ourselves of facilities in touristy areas, but even those have the potential to be nasty. Instead, everything has been surprisingly well kept, with little evidence of poor aim or backed up plumbing.
I'd expected to find quite a lot of squat toilets, but there have been fewer than I expected. The further away from any city you get, or the lower down the totem pole (bus station rather than airport), the more likely you are to find a squat toilet, but still, the toilets have been far more western than I'd expected.
Given less than clean conditions, I actually prefer squat toilets since you don't have to touch anything. That said, most of the squats we've encountered have been "modern" ones, meaning they are made of white porcelain rather than being just a hole in the ground. The problem with these is they tend to be any where from 6 o 8 inches off the surrounding floor, making it hard to keep one's balance, especially as the knees creak and groan.
Outside of the cities, most toilets don't have automatic flushing mechanisms. Rather, somewhere near the toilet (western or not) is a cistern or bucket filled with water. Floating on the top is a scoop, and you are to toss several scoops of water down the drain when done.
Outside the big cities, there isn't toilet paper. Locals use water from the cistern to clean up with, though in more sophisticated stalls, there is also a "bum gun" available (just like a spray nozzle on a kitchen sink).
Public toilet places (outside of major shopping malls) are often guarded by someone whose job it is to keep the place clean. Typically you are asked to pay a dime or so to use the facility. In some places, this entitles you to a few squares of toilet paper kept behind the desk. In other places, the toilet paper is readily accessible in the bathroom once you pay the dragon outside, but not in the individual stalls. You have to collect it from next to the sinks on your way in.
Toilet paper generally should not be flushed (the plumbing can't handle it), but should be deposited in the bin sitting next to the toilet. One of my pet peeves: the bin with a lid that operates with a foot pedal, carefully placed directly alongside the toilet. How the heck are you supposed to get a toe on the pedal when it's behind you? Especially from a squat toilet.
Most toilet places have sinks with running water, and usually a bar of soap, but nothing to dry hands. In some smaller places, there is a single sink somewhere in a more public space (like the back of the restaurant), or in even smaller places, there is a tap over the cistern (the one that you flush with) that you can use to wash hands with (thereby recycling the water for flushing). Sometimes there's a well worn towel for hand drying (germ central) but never any paper towel.
Here in Bangkok it's striking to me that in the big shopping malls (which we keep going to in order to get out of the heat--they're so heavily airconditioned you get goose bumps) the bathrooms are completely westernized. No bum guns, no bins, big rolls of toilet paper in the stalls, motion sensors on the water taps in the sink, soap in little squirty dispensers--but still no paper towel.
I'd expected to find quite a lot of squat toilets, but there have been fewer than I expected. The further away from any city you get, or the lower down the totem pole (bus station rather than airport), the more likely you are to find a squat toilet, but still, the toilets have been far more western than I'd expected.
Given less than clean conditions, I actually prefer squat toilets since you don't have to touch anything. That said, most of the squats we've encountered have been "modern" ones, meaning they are made of white porcelain rather than being just a hole in the ground. The problem with these is they tend to be any where from 6 o 8 inches off the surrounding floor, making it hard to keep one's balance, especially as the knees creak and groan.
Outside of the cities, most toilets don't have automatic flushing mechanisms. Rather, somewhere near the toilet (western or not) is a cistern or bucket filled with water. Floating on the top is a scoop, and you are to toss several scoops of water down the drain when done.
Outside the big cities, there isn't toilet paper. Locals use water from the cistern to clean up with, though in more sophisticated stalls, there is also a "bum gun" available (just like a spray nozzle on a kitchen sink).
Public toilet places (outside of major shopping malls) are often guarded by someone whose job it is to keep the place clean. Typically you are asked to pay a dime or so to use the facility. In some places, this entitles you to a few squares of toilet paper kept behind the desk. In other places, the toilet paper is readily accessible in the bathroom once you pay the dragon outside, but not in the individual stalls. You have to collect it from next to the sinks on your way in.
Toilet paper generally should not be flushed (the plumbing can't handle it), but should be deposited in the bin sitting next to the toilet. One of my pet peeves: the bin with a lid that operates with a foot pedal, carefully placed directly alongside the toilet. How the heck are you supposed to get a toe on the pedal when it's behind you? Especially from a squat toilet.
Most toilet places have sinks with running water, and usually a bar of soap, but nothing to dry hands. In some smaller places, there is a single sink somewhere in a more public space (like the back of the restaurant), or in even smaller places, there is a tap over the cistern (the one that you flush with) that you can use to wash hands with (thereby recycling the water for flushing). Sometimes there's a well worn towel for hand drying (germ central) but never any paper towel.
Here in Bangkok it's striking to me that in the big shopping malls (which we keep going to in order to get out of the heat--they're so heavily airconditioned you get goose bumps) the bathrooms are completely westernized. No bum guns, no bins, big rolls of toilet paper in the stalls, motion sensors on the water taps in the sink, soap in little squirty dispensers--but still no paper towel.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Paddle Boats and Aquariums
Today we utterly failed in our resolution to get up and get going before the sun got hot--it was after 10 before we managed to wake up, shower, eat and get out the door. But we stuck with our original plan, and walked to (relatively) nearby Lumphini Park. There we bought some water, then wandered around. There was a marching band holding a rehearsal near the band stand, a few farangs (white folks) riding their bikes, and an increasing number of Thai families congregating on the grass for picnics.
I noticed a surprising number of couples in which the female was performing serious grooming on the male--imagine a guy stretched out on a picnic blanket with his head in his girlfriend's lap, and her picking lice. Or popping zits. For a half hour at a time.
There are several small, artificial lakes in the park, and we rented two swan shaped paddleboats to explore. Mostly it was pretty, but then we spotted the 4 foot long lizard swimming around! Fortunately for my heart rate, just about the same time I first saw it, it stuck its tongue out, so I knew it wasn't an alligator only 10 feet from the boat. I called Declan and Richard over to see it, but a Thai guy had spotted it, and began herding it way too closely. We were trying to maintain a respectful distance (admire the wildlife, but don't harass it), while this guy seemed to think the game was to see if he could get close enough for his kids to pet the thing on the head. He chased it the entire length of the lake.
After that we got on the sky train and headed to a shopping mall. We sought out the food court for lunch. There were the rich folks restaurants (entrees for a mere 8 to 12 dollars a piece), and the working stiff/backpacker stalls (entrees for 2 to 3 dollars a piece). Guess where we ate? The system was interesting. At the entrance to the cheap eats, you bought a debit card, loading it with approximately what you thought you'd spend. After ordering, each stall would swipe your card. At the end, you could take the card back and get a refund for whatever you hadn't spent. It made service much faster at each stall, since they didn't have to count any money.
After lunch, Richard and Aidan headed back to the hotel to get some writing/homework done, while Declan and I planned to go to the aquarium (in the basement of the shopping center). We got distracted by the "gourmet market" (think Whole Foods gone Thai): I'll let him tell you about the samples.
We then explored the mall a bit (after going to the movie theater to discover whether or not the american movies were subtitled in Thai (meaning the soundtrack was still English) or dubbed (in which case we wouldn't need to consider buying a ticket). Most of the films are subtitled, so we may go to a movie soon. (As an aside, we were shown a Claude Von Dam movie on our VIP bus. I think that dubbing it into Thai actually improved it, as we didn't have to be distracted from the bad fight scenes by even worse dialogue.)
The mall contained lots of high end shops, including a BMW store and a Lamborghini store, complete with cars. The place was packed, but the impression I got was that there were lots of people window shopping, but not that many people actually buying. And the teenagers were busy hanging out, trying to impress.
We finally headed to the aquarium, and discovered that tickets for one adult and one kid would cost over $50. We did a quick rethink, and decided that a)even if it was the largest aquarium in SE Asia, maybe that was a bit much, b) if we were going to spend that kind of money, we should consult Richard and Aidan first, and c) if we were going to spend that much, we should at least come first thing in the morning and spend the whole day.
We probably won't go back, but we are still wondering just how they pull off the glass bottom boat ride under the mall.
After some gelato, we re-boarded the skytrain and headed back to the hotel.
I noticed a surprising number of couples in which the female was performing serious grooming on the male--imagine a guy stretched out on a picnic blanket with his head in his girlfriend's lap, and her picking lice. Or popping zits. For a half hour at a time.
There are several small, artificial lakes in the park, and we rented two swan shaped paddleboats to explore. Mostly it was pretty, but then we spotted the 4 foot long lizard swimming around! Fortunately for my heart rate, just about the same time I first saw it, it stuck its tongue out, so I knew it wasn't an alligator only 10 feet from the boat. I called Declan and Richard over to see it, but a Thai guy had spotted it, and began herding it way too closely. We were trying to maintain a respectful distance (admire the wildlife, but don't harass it), while this guy seemed to think the game was to see if he could get close enough for his kids to pet the thing on the head. He chased it the entire length of the lake.
After that we got on the sky train and headed to a shopping mall. We sought out the food court for lunch. There were the rich folks restaurants (entrees for a mere 8 to 12 dollars a piece), and the working stiff/backpacker stalls (entrees for 2 to 3 dollars a piece). Guess where we ate? The system was interesting. At the entrance to the cheap eats, you bought a debit card, loading it with approximately what you thought you'd spend. After ordering, each stall would swipe your card. At the end, you could take the card back and get a refund for whatever you hadn't spent. It made service much faster at each stall, since they didn't have to count any money.
After lunch, Richard and Aidan headed back to the hotel to get some writing/homework done, while Declan and I planned to go to the aquarium (in the basement of the shopping center). We got distracted by the "gourmet market" (think Whole Foods gone Thai): I'll let him tell you about the samples.
We then explored the mall a bit (after going to the movie theater to discover whether or not the american movies were subtitled in Thai (meaning the soundtrack was still English) or dubbed (in which case we wouldn't need to consider buying a ticket). Most of the films are subtitled, so we may go to a movie soon. (As an aside, we were shown a Claude Von Dam movie on our VIP bus. I think that dubbing it into Thai actually improved it, as we didn't have to be distracted from the bad fight scenes by even worse dialogue.)
The mall contained lots of high end shops, including a BMW store and a Lamborghini store, complete with cars. The place was packed, but the impression I got was that there were lots of people window shopping, but not that many people actually buying. And the teenagers were busy hanging out, trying to impress.
We finally headed to the aquarium, and discovered that tickets for one adult and one kid would cost over $50. We did a quick rethink, and decided that a)even if it was the largest aquarium in SE Asia, maybe that was a bit much, b) if we were going to spend that kind of money, we should consult Richard and Aidan first, and c) if we were going to spend that much, we should at least come first thing in the morning and spend the whole day.
We probably won't go back, but we are still wondering just how they pull off the glass bottom boat ride under the mall.
After some gelato, we re-boarded the skytrain and headed back to the hotel.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Kao Lak to Bangkok
Too many impressions, not enough time to write them down!
Wednesday: diving at Khao Lak. A fun trip in a longtail boat to a local reef, though the diving was disappointing to me because of poor visibility exacerbated by mask problems. (I should have shaved off the beard / mustache – and stolen from K the spare prescription mask she borrowed!) We did see lionfish, small eels and many very small blue fish of an astonishingly iridescent blue. And Declan is clearly at home with scuba: he kept doing cartwheels and flips underwater. Jumping on and off the boat at lunchtime was a blast.
Thursday: a final morning idling at the beach before we had to drag ourselves reluctantly from the bath-warm Andaman Sea to check out of our bungalow. Then an afternoon idling at the open-air restaurant, reading, staring out at the sea, watching an egret patrol a school of fish in the estuary, and noticing a monstrous (at least 3-ft) lizard down by the water. At five we got a taxi into town and caught the “VIP” bus (hmmm) for Bangkok, scheduled to take 13 hours. First you cross the Isthmus of Kra to Surat Thani, through surreal, gorgeous scenery of jungle, gorge, and karst limestone mountains. By Surat Thani it’s dark, and after a short stop for an iffy pre-paid dinner (nameless curry, gristly bits of something, mugs of iced water, rice) it’s back on the bus for the night. VIP means fewer and wider seats, but they sure weren’t the right shape for me: I spent much of the night looking around in amazement at all the people who were tipped back, mouths wide open, necks not obviously broken by the bouncing and swaying, fast asleep.
(I passed a pleasant hour in the middle of the night listening to a BBC podcast of a programme about the Great Reform Act of 1832. Conservative landowners thought that giving representation to a few million middle-class male small-property owners was tantamount to abandoning the ship of civilization. It might even, they feared, lead to the enfranchisement of all males, including the lower orders. I don’t think votes for women had even entered their nightmares at that point.)
And so very blearily to Bangkok, where our first little victory over the system (or anti-system) was threatening to remove our bags from a taxi when the driver wanted 450 Baht cash-in-advance. We got him (grumpily) to switch on the meter (which is legally required), and in the end paying him only the 191 Baht the ride was supposed to cost. Bangkok is Scam Central - luckily we had heard about this one in advance.
We are now ensconced in the almost legendary Atlanta Hotel on Sukumvit. The Atlanta is very budget, and the paint job has seen better days, but it has bags of charm and history. Among other people, General William Westmorland stayed here during the Vietnam War, and it has been a big favorite with journalists and writers for decades: there’s a nostalgic piece by the famous British correspondent Duncan Campbell, reproduced in the lobby, on returning to the hotel after an initial stay as a backpacker in 1971.
Our first day was mercilessly hot and steamy, and we were grateful after the bus ride to spend most of the afternoon having an extended nap in the bliss of air-con. Then in the evening we happened upon the 2009 Bangkok Dance Festival, free in a local park, where we saw everything from an Argentinean couple doing traditional tango to an Italian group doing an improbably athletic modern dance on stilts.
But today (Saturday) was cloudy with a breeze, a mere 80 F or so, and we managed to be serious tourists again. We took in the huge Grand Palace with attached huge Wat and revered Emerald Buddha (in fact jade, discovered in Chang Rai in 1434) which sits at the center of one of the most beautiful interiors I have seen anywhere in Asia – alas no cameras allowed). Then after a streetside lunch of rather greasy Pad See Euw (fried noodles with chicken), we saw the equally huge Wat Pho which houses, among many other things, the beyond-huge (I’m not kidding: 46 meters long) golden Reclining Buddha. Both Wats have extraordinary, beautifully restored murals illustrating the Ramakien – the Thai version of the Ramayana, which is even longer and more complex than the original. Back down the river by water taxi – past the Oriental Hotel, which due to some oversight we are NOT staying in – and the sleekly efficient Skytrain back to the Atlanta.
Wednesday: diving at Khao Lak. A fun trip in a longtail boat to a local reef, though the diving was disappointing to me because of poor visibility exacerbated by mask problems. (I should have shaved off the beard / mustache – and stolen from K the spare prescription mask she borrowed!) We did see lionfish, small eels and many very small blue fish of an astonishingly iridescent blue. And Declan is clearly at home with scuba: he kept doing cartwheels and flips underwater. Jumping on and off the boat at lunchtime was a blast.
Thursday: a final morning idling at the beach before we had to drag ourselves reluctantly from the bath-warm Andaman Sea to check out of our bungalow. Then an afternoon idling at the open-air restaurant, reading, staring out at the sea, watching an egret patrol a school of fish in the estuary, and noticing a monstrous (at least 3-ft) lizard down by the water. At five we got a taxi into town and caught the “VIP” bus (hmmm) for Bangkok, scheduled to take 13 hours. First you cross the Isthmus of Kra to Surat Thani, through surreal, gorgeous scenery of jungle, gorge, and karst limestone mountains. By Surat Thani it’s dark, and after a short stop for an iffy pre-paid dinner (nameless curry, gristly bits of something, mugs of iced water, rice) it’s back on the bus for the night. VIP means fewer and wider seats, but they sure weren’t the right shape for me: I spent much of the night looking around in amazement at all the people who were tipped back, mouths wide open, necks not obviously broken by the bouncing and swaying, fast asleep.
(I passed a pleasant hour in the middle of the night listening to a BBC podcast of a programme about the Great Reform Act of 1832. Conservative landowners thought that giving representation to a few million middle-class male small-property owners was tantamount to abandoning the ship of civilization. It might even, they feared, lead to the enfranchisement of all males, including the lower orders. I don’t think votes for women had even entered their nightmares at that point.)
And so very blearily to Bangkok, where our first little victory over the system (or anti-system) was threatening to remove our bags from a taxi when the driver wanted 450 Baht cash-in-advance. We got him (grumpily) to switch on the meter (which is legally required), and in the end paying him only the 191 Baht the ride was supposed to cost. Bangkok is Scam Central - luckily we had heard about this one in advance.
We are now ensconced in the almost legendary Atlanta Hotel on Sukumvit. The Atlanta is very budget, and the paint job has seen better days, but it has bags of charm and history. Among other people, General William Westmorland stayed here during the Vietnam War, and it has been a big favorite with journalists and writers for decades: there’s a nostalgic piece by the famous British correspondent Duncan Campbell, reproduced in the lobby, on returning to the hotel after an initial stay as a backpacker in 1971.
Our first day was mercilessly hot and steamy, and we were grateful after the bus ride to spend most of the afternoon having an extended nap in the bliss of air-con. Then in the evening we happened upon the 2009 Bangkok Dance Festival, free in a local park, where we saw everything from an Argentinean couple doing traditional tango to an Italian group doing an improbably athletic modern dance on stilts.
But today (Saturday) was cloudy with a breeze, a mere 80 F or so, and we managed to be serious tourists again. We took in the huge Grand Palace with attached huge Wat and revered Emerald Buddha (in fact jade, discovered in Chang Rai in 1434) which sits at the center of one of the most beautiful interiors I have seen anywhere in Asia – alas no cameras allowed). Then after a streetside lunch of rather greasy Pad See Euw (fried noodles with chicken), we saw the equally huge Wat Pho which houses, among many other things, the beyond-huge (I’m not kidding: 46 meters long) golden Reclining Buddha. Both Wats have extraordinary, beautifully restored murals illustrating the Ramakien – the Thai version of the Ramayana, which is even longer and more complex than the original. Back down the river by water taxi – past the Oriental Hotel, which due to some oversight we are NOT staying in – and the sleekly efficient Skytrain back to the Atlanta.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Fish Spa
While we were in Kuala Lumpur, Declan and I treated ourselves to a foot treatment at a fish spa. I'd read about a fish spa that had opened in the Seattle area sometime this summer, and then read a few days later about how the Health Department had shut them down. So when Richard and I were walking one night in KL and I was handed a flyer for a new fish spa that offered a $10 treatment, and kids under 12 were free, well, I had to try it.
What, you may ask, is a fish spa? Essentially, it's a 30 minute adventure that claims to remove the dead skin from your feet "the natural way." In other words, you quickly wash the day's grime off your feet, and then stick them into a fish tank. Yup, into a tank filled with hundreds of little fish. The fish spend 30 minutes nibbling, and voila, you have nice smooth feet.
I'll be honest...I shrieked when the fish first got to my feet. It felt like, well, ... a mass of little fish chewing on my feet. Ticklish and creepy all at the same time. After a minute or so, you adjust, and you just giggle maniacally while the little monsters try to get between your toes, nibbling all the while. Declan stuck his feet firmly on the bottom of the tank to try to discourage the most ticklish ones.
After about 20 minutes of this, we were moved to the tank with the bigger fish (4 inches, rather than 2). Sorry, but these guys have alarmingly sharp teeth, and their ministrations were actually somewhat painful. I found myself holding just my heels in the water, directing the fish towards the monster callouses developed from two months wearing nothing but Tevas.
Declan kept patting me on the shoulder and assuring me that I didn't have to go through with this, but I told him that there was no way I could quit if he was sticking it out.
At the end, we rinsed our feet off (note to future fish spa owners, some soap might not go awry here), and paid our $10.
Much to my surprise, when we got back to our hotel (totally drenched from the evening thunderstorm), our feet were admirably smooth and polished. Much better results than could be achieved with a pumice stone for sure. One week later, our feet still look much better than Aidan's and Richard's. But I can't say that I'll ever do it again.
What, you may ask, is a fish spa? Essentially, it's a 30 minute adventure that claims to remove the dead skin from your feet "the natural way." In other words, you quickly wash the day's grime off your feet, and then stick them into a fish tank. Yup, into a tank filled with hundreds of little fish. The fish spend 30 minutes nibbling, and voila, you have nice smooth feet.
I'll be honest...I shrieked when the fish first got to my feet. It felt like, well, ... a mass of little fish chewing on my feet. Ticklish and creepy all at the same time. After a minute or so, you adjust, and you just giggle maniacally while the little monsters try to get between your toes, nibbling all the while. Declan stuck his feet firmly on the bottom of the tank to try to discourage the most ticklish ones.
After about 20 minutes of this, we were moved to the tank with the bigger fish (4 inches, rather than 2). Sorry, but these guys have alarmingly sharp teeth, and their ministrations were actually somewhat painful. I found myself holding just my heels in the water, directing the fish towards the monster callouses developed from two months wearing nothing but Tevas.
Declan kept patting me on the shoulder and assuring me that I didn't have to go through with this, but I told him that there was no way I could quit if he was sticking it out.
At the end, we rinsed our feet off (note to future fish spa owners, some soap might not go awry here), and paid our $10.
Much to my surprise, when we got back to our hotel (totally drenched from the evening thunderstorm), our feet were admirably smooth and polished. Much better results than could be achieved with a pumice stone for sure. One week later, our feet still look much better than Aidan's and Richard's. But I can't say that I'll ever do it again.
Travel update
Tomorrow we leave our haven of quiet and luxury in Phuket, where we have spent a gorgeous week doing absolutely nothing, to move on up the coast. We will be stopping for two nights in Khao Lak, where we are hoping to do our first dive since Ko Tao, then making out way either by train or bus to Bangkok, possibly stopping along the way and possibly not. (We need to be in BK long enough to sort out both Vietnam and China visas.) It is sunny and beautiful here during the day, most days, though ominously cloudy on some days and with truly spectacular storms in the evening / night: last night there was a storm right over the house, with sheets of lightning and (at a guess) an inch of rain per hour for three hours.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Reading the News
I tried to read the news in Seattle today, and got the following message when I typed in the URL for the Seattle PI:
URL นี้ได้ถูกปิดกั้นแล้ว เนื่องจาก
มีคำสั่งศาลให้ปิดกั้น
หรือ
มีลักษณะเข้าข่ายที่อาจกระทบต่อความมั่นคงแห่งราชอาณาจักร หรืออาจขัดต่อความสงบเรียบร้อยหรือศีลธรรมอันดีของประชาชน
This URL has been blocked by
a Court order
Or
it could have an affect on or be against the security of the Kingdom, public order or good morals.
มีคำสั่งศาลให้ปิดกั้น
หรือ
มีลักษณะเข้าข่ายที่อาจกระทบต่อความมั่นคงแห่งราชอาณาจักร หรืออาจขัดต่อความสงบเรียบร้อยหรือศีลธรรมอันดีของประชาชน
This URL has been blocked by
a Court order
Or
it could have an affect on or be against the security of the Kingdom, public order or good morals.
Funnily enough, I could still read the Seattle Times.
Friday, March 6, 2009
Petrosains
Petrosains,or,the science of petrol, the name of the petrol museum at the base of the Petronas twin towers. Petronas is Malaysia's big oil giant, and it sponsors the museum.
You enter the museum, and leave it, on the dark ride, a tunnel with cars going along it and a voice outlining Malaysia's natural resources. Disembarking the ride, you enter the exhibit on static electricity, with items such as a plasma tube and a wool pad for creating static electricity. It was really cool when Declan got to use the tube to light a fluorescent light. Next up is Gravity, with a construct your on marble track wall. Next was Petrojaya, an imaginary town where people don't use oil as much as we do because they value it more. After a quick tour of Petrojaya, the next exhibit is Dino's . Does anybody know of a science museum that doesn't include dinosaurs? You'd think that there was a law against not having any. After the Dino's was earthquakes and some cool stuff like a faquirrs bed, i.e., a bed of nails. Next, you board a chopper out to a model oil rig. at the oil rig, you got to see crew quarters, medical offices, and the galley and then you move on to velocity and power. At this point, we realized that we were very nearly late or our sky bridge tickets, and bypassed the remnants of the museum (about another quarter of the exhibits).
I was torn about this museum. It is incredibly well designed, and the architect should get a medal, but it's main purpose is to glorify oil, specifically, Petronas oil. As a supporter of alternate energy, I thought that it could do with some improvements. Perhaps Petrojaya could simply be a modern society but without oil? What is the future for Hybrid cars, solar cars, and biodiesel cars? On t5he other hand, Petronas lives by selling oil, and in doing so, it provides many,many jobs. Which is better: millions of jobs, of cleaner air?
You enter the museum, and leave it, on the dark ride, a tunnel with cars going along it and a voice outlining Malaysia's natural resources. Disembarking the ride, you enter the exhibit on static electricity, with items such as a plasma tube and a wool pad for creating static electricity. It was really cool when Declan got to use the tube to light a fluorescent light. Next up is Gravity, with a construct your on marble track wall. Next was Petrojaya, an imaginary town where people don't use oil as much as we do because they value it more. After a quick tour of Petrojaya, the next exhibit is Dino's . Does anybody know of a science museum that doesn't include dinosaurs? You'd think that there was a law against not having any. After the Dino's was earthquakes and some cool stuff like a faquirrs bed, i.e., a bed of nails. Next, you board a chopper out to a model oil rig. at the oil rig, you got to see crew quarters, medical offices, and the galley and then you move on to velocity and power. At this point, we realized that we were very nearly late or our sky bridge tickets, and bypassed the remnants of the museum (about another quarter of the exhibits).
I was torn about this museum. It is incredibly well designed, and the architect should get a medal, but it's main purpose is to glorify oil, specifically, Petronas oil. As a supporter of alternate energy, I thought that it could do with some improvements. Perhaps Petrojaya could simply be a modern society but without oil? What is the future for Hybrid cars, solar cars, and biodiesel cars? On t5he other hand, Petronas lives by selling oil, and in doing so, it provides many,many jobs. Which is better: millions of jobs, of cleaner air?
Visas
Did I mention that our trip to KL did the trick for our visas? We got 30 days (until April 1) upon our return. Of course, we picked the slowest immigration clerk ever. Having been about the 15-20th people off the plane, we were the last, the absolute last, people through immigration (there were about 100 people on the plane). Only 7 people in front of us in line. Sigh.
But we can stay until our flight leaves Bangkok for Vietnam on the 29th. Now we just have to decide what we want to do after we leave Phuket.
But we can stay until our flight leaves Bangkok for Vietnam on the 29th. Now we just have to decide what we want to do after we leave Phuket.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Visiting the orphanage in Luang Prubang
I never did get around to posting about our visit to the orphanage in Luang Prubang. My Dad had chosen a guest house with ties to a local orphanage, and organized a trip out to see it. Richard didn't come with us (he took the time to get some writing done).
We got on the tuk tuk, and made a quick stop at the local market. There we purchased enough notebooks and pens for each of the 400 plus kids who stay at the orphanage. Then we drove on to the campus.
It would be easy to romanticize the place. It was a large space, several acres, with open buildings, green spaces, gardens, and surrounding beautiful scenery. But.
There are 400 plus kids who live there, ranging in age from about 8 to 17. It wasn't quite clear where the kids lived prior to coming to this facility. Some of them have no parents, some only one. Most come from villages, rather than from LP itself.
The campus includes boys and girls dormitories, classrooms, a dining hall, open green space, bathing places, toilets, and gardens. In the old dormitories, there are long rows of knee high platforms lining each wall. Above the platforms at about head height runs a shelf. Each kid has the width of a twin mattress (though no mattress, only a mat on top of the platform), with the corresponding space under the mat and on the shelf for personal belongings. In the new dorms, the boys have bunk beds, again with some space under the bed and some on a shelf. Most kids kept their belongings in large reusable plastic bags.
Most of the toilets are tiled concrete structures. To a Western eye, used to indoor plumbing and hyper cleanliness, they seem much like upscale outhouses. By local standards, they are quite nice. Certainly as nice or nicer than toileting facilities we saw in smaller villages. They bathe in newly constructed concrete and tile areas, with no walls and a central reservoir of clean water (there is a tap, with a small hose for bathing). I assume that they wear sarongs to bathe in, as is done in much of the rest of the country where public bathing is common. By local standards, the bathing facility is nicely done, again, certainly as nice as any public bath we saw in the villages.
The food is cooked over four wood fires in a small kitchen area. During the week, the kids are provided with bread and milk at breakfast time, and a simple lunch and dinner. While we were there, just before lunch, we saw 7 tables, each holding a bag of cooked sticky rice and a pot of watery vegetable and pork (mostly bone) stew. We asked how many kids each table would feed, and were told 13. It seemed like generous, albeit not particularly appetising portions. But then we asked whether the kids ate in shifts. No, we were told, this is all the food for all the kids. And then we realized that each pot served 30 kids. Not nearly enough. I noticed that outside the dining hall there was another place with food. It turns out that if the kids want, they can buy supplementary food there.
There is no food cooked for the kids on the weekends--the cooking staff only works during the week. They are given sticky rice to have, plus about 50 cents to cover buying some additional food. They can also cook some of the vegetables from the garden.
There are no adults at the orphanage on the weekends. The kids are left to fend for themselves. The older kids are matched up with younger ones. In an ideal world, this would work well for teaching responsibility and creating connection between the kids. I couldn't help but think of Lord of the Flies, and worry that what in fact happens is some system whereby the older kids boss and bully the younger kids.
All the kids were in class while we were there. Our guide said that the school there is much better than that in the villages, and it certainly looked like they were in a pretty decent place. The classrooms looked as nice, if not nicer, than those we taught in in another village (more about that in another post).
The guide also said that when the kids left the orphanage, they all had the option of a government job. No one else we talked to could verify this, but if it's true, these kids are definitely better off than kids in the American system. In the US, once a kid ages out of the system, he or she receives no more support and many (most?) wind up in jail with a year of their "independence".
I left thinking it was hard to know what to think. Certainly, no kid should be in an orphanage, the food was insufficient, and I can't imagine leaving 400 kids to self govern every weekend. But what is their alternative? Life in a village with relatives who don't want them, can't feed them, and can't educate them?
We got on the tuk tuk, and made a quick stop at the local market. There we purchased enough notebooks and pens for each of the 400 plus kids who stay at the orphanage. Then we drove on to the campus.
It would be easy to romanticize the place. It was a large space, several acres, with open buildings, green spaces, gardens, and surrounding beautiful scenery. But.
There are 400 plus kids who live there, ranging in age from about 8 to 17. It wasn't quite clear where the kids lived prior to coming to this facility. Some of them have no parents, some only one. Most come from villages, rather than from LP itself.
The campus includes boys and girls dormitories, classrooms, a dining hall, open green space, bathing places, toilets, and gardens. In the old dormitories, there are long rows of knee high platforms lining each wall. Above the platforms at about head height runs a shelf. Each kid has the width of a twin mattress (though no mattress, only a mat on top of the platform), with the corresponding space under the mat and on the shelf for personal belongings. In the new dorms, the boys have bunk beds, again with some space under the bed and some on a shelf. Most kids kept their belongings in large reusable plastic bags.
Most of the toilets are tiled concrete structures. To a Western eye, used to indoor plumbing and hyper cleanliness, they seem much like upscale outhouses. By local standards, they are quite nice. Certainly as nice or nicer than toileting facilities we saw in smaller villages. They bathe in newly constructed concrete and tile areas, with no walls and a central reservoir of clean water (there is a tap, with a small hose for bathing). I assume that they wear sarongs to bathe in, as is done in much of the rest of the country where public bathing is common. By local standards, the bathing facility is nicely done, again, certainly as nice as any public bath we saw in the villages.
The food is cooked over four wood fires in a small kitchen area. During the week, the kids are provided with bread and milk at breakfast time, and a simple lunch and dinner. While we were there, just before lunch, we saw 7 tables, each holding a bag of cooked sticky rice and a pot of watery vegetable and pork (mostly bone) stew. We asked how many kids each table would feed, and were told 13. It seemed like generous, albeit not particularly appetising portions. But then we asked whether the kids ate in shifts. No, we were told, this is all the food for all the kids. And then we realized that each pot served 30 kids. Not nearly enough. I noticed that outside the dining hall there was another place with food. It turns out that if the kids want, they can buy supplementary food there.
There is no food cooked for the kids on the weekends--the cooking staff only works during the week. They are given sticky rice to have, plus about 50 cents to cover buying some additional food. They can also cook some of the vegetables from the garden.
There are no adults at the orphanage on the weekends. The kids are left to fend for themselves. The older kids are matched up with younger ones. In an ideal world, this would work well for teaching responsibility and creating connection between the kids. I couldn't help but think of Lord of the Flies, and worry that what in fact happens is some system whereby the older kids boss and bully the younger kids.
All the kids were in class while we were there. Our guide said that the school there is much better than that in the villages, and it certainly looked like they were in a pretty decent place. The classrooms looked as nice, if not nicer, than those we taught in in another village (more about that in another post).
The guide also said that when the kids left the orphanage, they all had the option of a government job. No one else we talked to could verify this, but if it's true, these kids are definitely better off than kids in the American system. In the US, once a kid ages out of the system, he or she receives no more support and many (most?) wind up in jail with a year of their "independence".
I left thinking it was hard to know what to think. Certainly, no kid should be in an orphanage, the food was insufficient, and I can't imagine leaving 400 kids to self govern every weekend. But what is their alternative? Life in a village with relatives who don't want them, can't feed them, and can't educate them?
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