Christmas in the Philippines: Siquijor

Finally I made it to my island! Siquijor is one of the smaller independently governed islands in the Philippines and also one of the wealthier, due to its rich resources and relative self sufficiency. Fish, coconuts, mangoes, and corn are the main industries, and nearly everyone seems to work in one of these trades -- (notice I didn't mention tourism!)

Most Filipinos who have heard of Siquijor will tell you about its reputation for being inhabited by mysterious healers practicing witchcraft. Many locals won't visit the island. But they all live up in the mountains, away from the beaches - so I wasn't worried. (Actually that's one of the reasons I decided to come here.. There isn't much in the guide books that would make any one island more appealing than the next - they all have "white -beaches", so the fact that Siquijor had something unique sold it for me.)

I didn't have a Lonely Planet with me to help in the selection of a hotel, so when I got off the ferry I figured I would just look around the town to see what I could find. Of course I was instantly smothered by taxi drivers yelling "where you going sir?" "I'll drive you!" -- I've dealt with enough of this in my near-5 months in Asia to know how to deal with that: ignore, walk fast. I found a small shop where I bought a water from a friendly old lady whom I asked for advice about the best place to rent a motorcycle. The guy standing next to me just happened to own a motorcycle rental business, and he also just happened to have a pamphlet with the name and price of every hotel on the island. I picked the cheapest, and he dropped me off there and went back to get me a bike. The hotel wasn't on the beach, but I figured that since I had my own transportation, I could sacrifice the convenience for the great prices.

When the guy came back with my motorbike, I grabbed my bathing suit and headed out on my first expedition to find the perfect beach. With 75 km of coastline, I had plenty of options, so I decided to head west - maybe I would get to catch a nice sunset too. The road was beautifully smooth (compared to my last experience in Vietnam..) and the weather was perfect for a leisurely ride. Soon enough, the road met up with the coastline, and I could see through the palm trees to a gorgeous "white-sand beach". I drove along the beach for a while looking for a public access point, but it seemed like the string of locals' huts was never ending, and I didn't want to walk through somebody's property. Eventually I found a cafe, where I figured I would park my bike, grab a drink, and then conveniently use their "back yard" as a way to get to the beach.

When I sat down at the bar, an Australian guy came out to greet me and give me a menu. We ended up chatting for a while about the island (which is where I found out my facts about industry, agriculture, self sufficiency, etc...) Apparently he doesn't get to talk to other westerners much because he talked at me for a solid hour without me getting a word in, and apparently he had a very simple life because about 45 minutes of that hour was spent talking about the intricacies of the past month's weather (which had been unremarkable lately). Luckily, he got a call in the other room, and his Filipina wife came out to chat while he was gone. She explained more about the island, about the Philippines in general, and about the languages they speak and why everyone can speak English. It seemed that she had lived a far more interesting life that her husband, and she was excited that I had come from China because it reminded her of the six years she had spent working in Taiwan. She invited me to use their beachfront, and I immediately accepted and headed off to do some relaxing at last.

As I walked along the beach, it was easy to see that the island hadn't yet been ruined by tourism. There was not a single foreigner, and there was absolutely no one enjoying leisure time. There were lots of fishermen hauling their boats between the shade of the palm trees and the ocean, and there were lots of kids scavenging in the shallow water. I felt uncomfortable laying down and enjoying the sun while the locals were going about their not-so-leisurely daily activities around me. As much as I see myself as a poor college student, using most of my meager savings to be on this beach, the fact that I was able to be there in the first place is a luxury that they will probably never know. Somewhat embarrassed by my privileged intentions, I found an isolated area with no houses nearby to lay down my towel.

I was able to get in some quality napping and reading time before, I was joined by 4 mischievous kids who wanted to find out what I was doing on their beach. They introduced themselves as Chris, Christopher, Christian, and "Monkeyballs" (which I guess is on of the less common New Testament names?) They ran around throwing rocks at each other for before stealing my book, so they could read from it and impress me with their English skills. We talked about Christmas for a while, which they were all excited about, and they told me what gifts they wanted from Santa -- who, even in the Philippines, wears the red winter clothes and rides on a reindeer-driven sleigh.... A volleyball for Chris, a toy ship for Christopher, a new Bible for Christian, and for Monkeyballs: an AK-47.... They reluctantly left to go eat dinner, but they told me that they wanted to meet me there again the next day at 1pm sharp.. and they expected me to give them "lots of money." --- I didn't meet them the next day....

It was cloudy the next morning, so I decided that instead of sitting on the beach I would do some exploring on my motorbike. The first place I went, of course, was to the mountains to look for witches. I didn't find any of course, but it was an incredible drive either way. While winding my way up mountain roads, through thick jungle, and past steep ravines at every bend - I got back into my "motorcycle zen" mode, and enjoyed the peace and sense of pure freedom that go with it. I passed through small barangay villages with old women preparing vegetables and practicing voodoo, young men cleaning their motorcycles, lounging around on benches outside of their shacks, and smoking cigarettes, and little kids - who would always take a break from kicking chickens and climbing trees to scream a hearty "hello!!" to me, the strange white guy riding down their road. The villages on the mountain were clearly poorer than the ones on the coast, so it was interesting to see the contrasting personalities of the locals -- these ones were completely shocked to see me.

At the top of the highest point on the island, is a nationally protected rain forest, where I got to do some great off-roading before descending to the other side of the island, which was sunny and warm. With the unexpected change in weather, I decided to go find a beach. I had heard of a great spot near on the southern coast, and my directions to get there were: turn off the main road by a small church, pass a limestone mine, take a dirt road through the forest and pass a little cove on your left before you get to some concrete steps at a cliff, which will take you down to a beautiful, secluded beach. I had an exciting time finding the place, but when I did it was completely worth the search. I stayed there until just before sunset, when I headed back to my side of the island for a great Filipino dinner of spicy dry beef strips and rice..

I spent the rest of my week doing a lot of exploring and beach-ing, and I think I successfully rid myself of any stress that I had acquired in the overwhelmingly hectic land of China. Christmas was pleasantly spent on a secluded beach, where I saw my best sunset of the whole trip. The steady stream of carolers at the hotel never thinned out, even after the holiday had clearly ended. And after the 748th time I heard "I'm Dreaming of a WHITE Christmas" I was ready to scream at someone and remind them that it NEVER snows in the Philippines... They have completely adopted America's strangest aspects of the Christmas season.... unfortunately....

After I had had enough isolation, I hopped on a ferry and headed back to Cebu to catch my plane back to Hong Kong. I spent a day exploring the city, which was not overwhelmingly exciting, but did have some interesting sights - a few cathedrals, a Spanish fort, and the site where Magellan was murdered by native tribesmen.... I visited the Carbon Market, where I saw some of the most intense poverty I have ever encountered, and felt for the first time in my travels that I might get mugged and killed if I didn't keep walking quickly, but it was definitely a "cultural experience"...

Despite the beautiful beaches, friendly people, and relaxed atmosphere.. I am incredibly glad to now be back in Hong Kong -- a city which holds its place very high on my favorite Asian cities list.

Arrival in the Philippines - Cebu to Dumaguete

So taking a 1am flight might not have been the best idea, but it was cheap so I took it. I arrived at the Cebu International Airport around 4am and headed outside to find a taxi after clearing customs. I was caught off guard by the heat and humidity as I exited the terminal, even at such an early hour, and I was then pummeled by cab drivers who were trying to offer me "cheap" fares into the city. I knew they were all trying to rip me off, so I bargained the trip down to what I thought was acceptable and got a ride to the ferry docks to catch my boat to Dumaguete. I ended up getting ripped off anyway because the guy "had no change" and I had no other option because the exchange booth only gave me large bills (they also ripped me off).

After I bought my ferry ticket and went through security at the dock, I sat down in the waiting area as far away from other people as I could. It was 4:30 at this point, and I hadn't slept, and I was starting to feel like the Filipinos were all out to get me, until a kid around my age approached me and told me that I had to go to a desk on the other side of the lobby to fill out some paperwork in order to board the ferry. He walked me through the process that I never would have been able to figure out on my own. I sat back down in my corner spot with my faith renewed in the Filipino people by his gesture of kindness. I had two hours to wait until my boat arrived, so I was planning on taking a nap -- until somebody turned on the TV over my head and a group of 7 blind musicians began playing the Filipino version of every American Christmas carol I have ever heard -- mariachi style...

While I normally would have embraced this mariachi exhibition as an opportunity to enjoy a true local experience, I would have appreciated a few hours of sleep far more. When one of the group leaders came over to me to offer me a "Christmas letter" (an appeal for donation for the Cebu school for the blind), I decided to switch my focus to the TV above me so it didn't look like I was enjoying the music too much, and therefore marking me for a big donation. (I would have felt too guilty.) The TV was pretty interesting anyway. It was my first substantial exposure to the Filipino language. I was completely blown away that I could actually understand about a quarter of everything they were talking about! Apparently during the various periods of colonial subjugation that the islands have undergone, the country's language has developed into a mixture of mostly native Tagalog roots with about 20% English vocabulary, 15% Spanish vocabulary, and random smatterings of Chinese, Javanese, Malay, and Arabic words. So you could easily overhear a conversation that has a phrase like this: "Anako mapu ng sa ciento setenta y cuatro pesos por the motorcycle he bought ang bohol." (I made up the Tagalog parts.. but that's what it sounds like when I listen to them.) Numbers are frequently said using Spanish or English, and English vocabulary pops up all the time, and is spoken with perfect American pronunciation. Very surreal...

The sun was rising as I boarded the ferry, and it illuminated the beautiful tropical scenery that would be the backdrop for the rest of the cruise down the coast of Cebu to my destination - Dumaguete - a college town on the east coast of Negros Island. After walking into the city from the pier through the scorching morning sun, I checked into a room and took a much needed nap. I did some exploring around the town, had some Filipino food, which it very simple but tasty (lots of barbecued, fried, and grilled meat with rice). I people watched from a seafront cafe as creepy old white guys paraded down the boulevard with their far-too-young Filipina girlfriends.

One thing I noticed about Filipino culture before I even got on the plane is how family and child oriented they seem to be compared to Europeans (especially the British). I noticed this in an almost-too-perfect display of the idea while I was waiting in the check-in line at the Hong Kong airport. In the ticket line to my right there were three British families with little kids. All of the kids were whining/crying/complaining/etc, and their parents were all scolding/yelling/complaining/etc back at them and with each other. On the other side of me was a line of Filipino families with kids. They were all joking, laughing, and playing with each other. Rather than frustratedly wait in line while their kids got bored and restless, the Filipino parents and an older siblings would take the young kids out of the line to distract them with games and attention. British kids -- all crying. Filipino kids -- all laughing. I found that really interesting...

Back to Dumaguete -- it's definitely similar to Southeast Asia with respect to dirtiness, smelliness, and chaos, but it has a pleasant tropical seaside charm. The poverty is pretty obvious, but the lively college campus at the north end of the city is an encouraging sign of better times to come.

(About the violence and semi-war going on between the military and various local militant factions...) No need to worry about that. They conveniently made a 21 day Christmas truce that encompasses my entire stay, so I'll be fine Mom.

Overall, I think I'm ready to veg on the beach for the next week. I'll tell you how that goes the next time I can muster up the motivation to find a computer.

Hong Kong - Pretty Awesome

After packing all of my belongings into one enormous "Samsonite" suitcase that I bought for 15 bucks at a market in Beijing, I put it in storage, said goodbye to all of my China friends who were headed home for Christmas, and I hopped on a 24 hour train to Hong Kong to begin my winter of travel.

As much as mainland China would like you to believe that Hong Kong is part of the PRC, it is definitely not. Nothing is the same at all. Hong Kong's language is different, the government is different, the people act and dress differently, the transportation and traffic patterns are efficient and they drive on the other side of the road. The city is clean, it doesn't smell like feces, the food is safe, and the prices are about 40 times what they are on the mainland. (I guess that's the price you pay for being a developed country.) I had to get my passport stamped out of China and into Hong Kong -- that counts as a different country to me.

After checking into a tiny hostel in a high rise in the middle of Kowloon with my friend Ling from Beijing, we explored the peninsular part of the city. We enjoyed the fresh, tasty food, which is nowhere near as oily as Beijing's and which is very similar to what we get back in the States. We immediately noticed the high Hong Kong prices and how much it hurt to pay the equivalent of 4 to 8 dollars for a restaurant meal. I had to pay almost 20 dollars for a haircut!!! (In Beijing, this could have cost me only 2 dollars.)

We sat on the edge of the harbor and watched the Hong Kong island skyline as the sun dipped below the huge mountains behind the city. -- Which reminds me to mention how vastly different the landscape and climate is here. When I left Beijing it was below freezing, and light snow was still covering most of the ground. The air was dry and polluted, and I had almost forgotten that we have mountains because they were hidden behind an ocean of smog. Hong Kong -- we stepped off the train and into humid, sunny, 80 degree weather. Beautiful!! Hong Kong is literally a cluster of monolithic skyscrapers plopped down on the coast of a tropical island. The harbor has hundreds of small mountainous islands covered in a thick belt of jungle. (80% of the city is actually forest.) However it IS winter.. so people feel the need to wear scarves with their t-shirts... China....

I only stayed one night in the city, but I think I got a pretty good feel for it in two days, and I'm definitely excited to come back for the week after Christmas. (Hong Kong celebrates Christmas like nothing you would EVER find on the mainland. Christmas carols were playing in every restaurant, mall, subway station, etc... Keep in mind this is a Buddhist country -- you think America has commercialized the holiday? Come here..)

After taking a double-decker London style bus across the mountain in the middle Hong Kong Island this afternoon, we descended the tight windy jungle road that lead to a beautiful tropical beach where we spent the afternoon eating mangosteens and watching the fishing boats. (Yes, this is about a mile from the center of one of Asia's biggest cities.) On our way back to Kowloon I continued my Cantonese lessons with Ling (the languages are pretty similar -- probably the difference between Portuguese and French). We got some Vietnamese food for dinner with Christmas music videos playing on a TV in the background, walked down goldfish street where thousands of types of decorative fish are sold, and I got my bags and took the subway to the airport where I am now waiting to board my flight to the Philippines.

I'll write more about HK when I get to spend some more time there in a few weeks. Until then, Merry Christmas everybody -- I'll be thinking about you all while I'm lying on the beaches of Siquijor sipping tropical drinks = )

China - An Overview

Yeah... I know... it has been three and a half months since my last post. Blogging can be exhausting sometimes, and the Chinese government blocks all useful websites (like this one), so rather than go through the mildly time consuming process of using a proxy website to illegally access my blog, I took the lazy route and neglected it altogether. I apologize.

So China --

There is no way I can sum up these past three and a half months in one blog post, but I'm going to try because I don't have the patience to tell every story. (Plus - if I told you everything now what stories would I have when I get back home?) So, this post has the potential to be a long one.

--Arrival and First Impressions--

My 48 hour train ride from Hanoi to Beijing was very exciting. Most of the passengers were Vietnamese students heading north for to start their fall classes in Chinese universities, who could speak either English or Chinese -- enough in common to do some basic communicating. I ran into two other Westerners who were very nice to have when crossing the quite intimidating Vietnam-China border. We spent both days on the train talking with people from all over Asia (including the coach of the North Korean Women's Soccer Team), and it was eye opening to say the least.

Our first actual stop in China was a tiny city of 1.5 million people called Nanning, in the Guangxi province. I was helping to interpret Chinese for the two girls I had met, and was very impressed with my ability to find banks, restaurants, and discuss border clearance issues with the Chinese immigration officials. About China though, I was thoroughly impressed. The countryside was VERY "Chinese" looking, which is in contrast to many places in Southeast Asia that seemed either Western influenced, generically simple, or just lacked a respective cultural aesthetic. The city of Nanning was clean and lively. The people were friendly and happy. The language was clear and easy to understand. And best of all, whenever the train stopped at a new station, the Vietnamese kids would pull me off the train with them to grab a quick bowl of noodle soup from the platform vendors, and the food was great!

When we arrived in Beijing, I decided to spend the day with the two girls I had met, find a hostel, and then head off to campus the next day for orientation at my program. While riding from the train station to Tiananmen Square in a taxi, I was blown away by the colossal grandeur of Beijing. The main boulevards were 10 lanes wide, the forbidden city palaces and central government offices were monolithic, the number of cars was incredible but so far efficiently managed, the sidewalks were sparkling clean, the bridges and roads were in pristine condition, and the skyscraper littered cityscape extended far into the horizon (which I had no problem seeing because it was sunny and very clear.. what is this terrible pollution everyone always complains about??) This couldn't be the capital of a third world country! Compared to some of the places I had been in the last two months, I was very excited to call Beijing my new home.

After walking around downtown for a while, I found a hostel in the middle of a hutong - Beijing's one story, traditional , narrow-alleyway neighborhoods (very cool). Inside the hostel was a large courtyard with traditional Chinese layout and decoration. Aesthetics were clearly important, which was overwhelmingly impressive. The neighborhood was teeming with life, and I walked around exploring the alleys and street vendors, noshing on snacks I picked up along the way - a fried pancake for 5 cents here, a lamb kebab for 10 cents there.

Later on, a Chinese guy from the hostel helped me negotiate for a cheap second hand cell phone - about 20 bucks for the phone plus 100 minutes. When choosing your number, there is a book with different pages displaying the numbers under different price categories. If a number has more 4's for example, it will be cheaper because 4 is an unlucky number - 4 is pronounced sì in Chinese, which is almost identical to the word for death - si (with a different tone). Similarly, 514 is a terrible combination. Pronounced wuyaosi, it sounds very close to woyaosi, which means "I will die." Because of the way the Chinese language repeats its limited set of spoken syllables, assigning many meanings to one sound, most phone numbers have hidden messages, making some more desirable than others, and therefore more or less expensive.

-- My Program and Peking University --

I took a cab to the university the next morning to settle into my room for orientation week. I was really enjoying talking to the cab drivers at this point and listening to their strange version of Mandarin which uses the famous Beijing erhua - a fairly obnoxious obsession with adding the -er suffix to every sound possible. For example the sentence "Where do you want to go? Peking University's West Gate?" Normally this would be pronounced - "Qu nali? Beida xi men ma?" However a Beijing cab driver somehow makes this sound like "Qu naerr? Beida xi mrrr ma?"

The campus is fantastic, I have plenty of pictures of it in my albums if you're interested. After moving in to my room and unpacking, I wandered around and met my new dorm mates. I returned to my room later on in the day to find a bald guy in his mid 40s standing at my door, who greeted me with "Hi, I'm you're room mate.." I had no clue what to say, as this was completely unexpected - I was flooded with horrific hypotheticals of 9 o'clock bedtimes, smelly bathrooms, awkward conversation, and a stunted social life. And then he said, "but lucky for you I got myself an apartment down the street, so you have the room to yourself all semester!" Thank god.... Either way, he ended up being pretty cool, and since he had spent time here already over the summer and was familiar with the area, he showed some of us newcomers around and explained the basic routines and necessities of life in Beijing.

My program begins --

CIEE - some love it, most regard it as the hand of Satan. The first few days of orientation were appreciated, but we quickly discovered that our directors and the program layout are very unorganized and arbitrary. We also realized that this is how pretty much everything is in China. They charge us 10 times the regular price for Beida tuition, and do very little to make up for it. We have been on two main group trips to different parts of the country - Henan and Nanjing - and although interesting, I would have gotten way more out of the experiences had I traveled independently.

I have class 5 days a week, anywhere from four to six hours a day (way more than back home, but I'm getting less credits....) Everything is in Chinese, and I'm not sure my professors can speak any English. The classes are very hard, and no - China has not figured out a better way of teaching its language than America has -- it's exactly like back home but more intense.

I live in a dorm with all Americans, and we take classes with all international students -- meaning it is very difficult to meet the Chinese students.

-- The Food --

Chinese food is great, and it is definitely better than the Chinese food back home. Although three food poisonings later, I do miss American Chinese food a little... I can never quite look at lamb intestine shish kabobs the same way again.

After three months, I can definitely say I miss American food. I crave fresh, raw vegetables more than anything else. (As much as you may enjoy that Chinese mandarin orange salad back home, keep in mind that it is an American luxury -- salad does not exist in China.)

I also miss boneless chicken. Fillet is not in the Chinese vocabulary, while unfortunately, "hacked-into-tiny-bony-pieces" definitely is. That goes for fish too, which are cooked and served whole, and somehow have more bones than scales.

The one thing I can't complain about though is the price. You will never find something cheaper than a meal in Beijing. It is easy to go out with a group of ten people and pay no more than 20 US dollars.. TOTAL!

-- The People --

They yell, the spit, they fart, they scratch, they pick, they piss, they smell, they snarl, and they eat babies -- all in public. Period.

-- The City --

No joke, Beijing is the size of Belgium. It takes me an hour to get into the city center with no traffic. -- Public transportation across town? Expect a good two hours of hell and frustration.

I'm sure you've heard about the pollution, and yes it is that bad. It is bad enough to be considered its own category of weather. -- "Tomorrow will be dry and sunny with a change of rain. Wednesday will be polluted and windy." -- When the pollution rolls in and gets caught by the bowl of mountains that surround Beijing, it is probably better not to leave your house. There are days when I literally can't see further than half a city block in front of me. You wouldn't be able to play tennis outside because you wouldn't be able to find your partner unless you had dolphin-like echolocation -- but I'm sure the toxic pollution cloud would interfere with that too, so sorry, forget about outdoor activities.

Beijing does have pretty much everything you would need on a day to day basis, and has plenty of options for amusement and killing the time.

The food options are pretty good, but I wouldn't go into a foreign restaurant with any expectations whatsoever (except for one Indian place we found.. not too shabby.)

-- The Prices --

Beijing is incredibly cheap if you know how to bargain. Some things like food and transportation are cheap no matter what, but the Beijing market is the true test of your haggling skills. The Silk Street Market is no place for the weak. A foreigner here will be approached in his native language, whether it be English, Spanish, Japanese, German, Finnish, or Swahili (these ladies know it all) with a price that he or she would expect to find in his or her own country -- maybe higher. For example, a polo t-shirt could be offered at 280 RMB (about 40 USD) because they know stupid westerners will pay this much. However, after some very hard bargaining, it is not uncommon to end up paying 20 RMB (a little under $3). Not only will they try to rip you off, however, they will also make up the most ridiculous lies to convince you to buy their product. A week ago I was in a market looking for winter coats. I found one that I liked and tried it on, but it was too big and I told the lady trying to sell it to me. She assured me that Beijingers only wear coats 5 times their size because they are warmer and they are much better looking. I told her that I would rather have a coat that fit. She told me that if I were to wear a smaller jacket I would probably freeze to death, and I would also have no friends because small coats are ugly. So - I asked for a smaller size (the tag said XXL) and the lady reluctantly said "fiiinneee, stay here, I'll see if I can find a smaller one". She ran out of the stall with the jacket and came back a few minutes later with another one wrapped in plastic, sized XL. It was still too big when I tried it on, so I asked again for a smaller one. She complained to me that that was the smallest they had, and that it looked soooo good on me the way it was. But I wanted one that fit, so I said smaller or nothing. She took the jacket and yelled to someone in another stall in another dialect that I don't understand, and then tossed the jacket over the separator to him, telling me that he had a smaller one, which he quickly passed back over in a plastic bag. It was size L, but it was exactly the same as the first and second jackets. I looked at the tag and realized that they had been taking the same jacket and cutting X's off the tag so that it went from XXL to XL to L. I called her out on the scam, and she was a little embarrassed, but she promised to give me a pengyou (we're friends!) discount if I bought it. Of course I didn't. --- Such is shopping in Beijing, a long, tedious, frustrating process that leaves most bitter and exhausted. If you call your friend and they say they just got back from the Yaxiu clothing market, it is probably not a good idea to ask them out for drinks -- let them sleep off their hatred for the world.

-- The Tourists --

Simple -- we despise you. Foreigners living in Beijing feel some kind of strange right to the city that does not belong to tourists. Unless you are a family member or friend visiting us personally, and we are showing you around, we will complain about you and how you have no place in our city. We will hypocritically call you a laowai or a waiguoren, which are the discriminatory terms used by the native Beijingers against all foreigners (including us).

I do encourage you to visit Beijing, but please do not go to the hutong or other cultural places and pay 40 dollars for an "authentic" rickshaw ride around the alleyways that lasts 10 minutes. Please do not go to quanjude Peking Duck restaurants and pay 80 dollars for a terrible touristy bastardization of a Beijing delicacy. Please do not go to a market and assume you are getting a good price if you are speaking English -- chances are that you are paying 5x the actual price. And last, but not least, please respect the local culture. I can't tell you how many times I've seen screaming matches between westerners and locals because of cultural differences and ignorant Americans who expect everyone to speak English and give them everything they want.

Sorry for ranting..

-- The Language --

Chinese is a great language that I will never master. I have never heard a foreigner who can fluently speak it like a local, and I have met a lot of foreigners. Learning any European language would sound like a vacation to me compared to Chinese. I have definitely improved since arriving, but I have a LONG way to go.

-- The Conclusion --

Despite my complaints, which I express far more than my compliments, I love China and I love Beijing. This is an adventure for me that I can never replace -- it is a challenge, not a vacation. I enjoy every minute of it, and the difficulties that I encounter only make me appreciate even more what I have back home.

Halong Bay and Hanoi Part II

I hopped in the van provided by the hotel at about 8am and introduced myself to my fellow travelers: a Canadian girl from Edmonton and two Israeli guys. After about three hours we arrived at the port and hopped on our Chinese junk sailboat where we ate lunch and set off for the bay.

There's nothing I can really say to go into detail about this place. It was MUCH nicer than I had expected it to be - 1,000 times more beautiful and peaceful that what I had read and seen in pictures. For the next two days, our boat chugged along through an endless sea of karst rock islands, passing small floating fishing villages and fellow tourists. We did some kayaking the first evening and spent about an hour diving off the top of the boat into the refreshing, emerald green water below. That night we all hung out on the roof deck and had some great conversation over a few cool beers. We were dropped off at the harbor again the next afternoon and shuttled back into Hanoi.

Now I had to figure out how to spend the next five days in the capital, already feeling like I had seen everything there was to see. I explored every last inch of the Old Quarter, and went to see a water puppet show, which was actually fantastic! If it were in New York, I could easily see paying 100 bucks for the show, but of course this being Vietnam, I paid a little over a dollar.

I spent a few days lounging around hopping from cafe to cafe reading a book I picked up called The Catfish and the Mandala. I got a counterfit street copy for $2.50 after haggling it down from 15 bucks. It's about a Vietnamese guy who escapes from the south with his family as a child during the war and decides to do a bicycle trip back to his homeland to explore his roots as an adult. It's a teriffic book in general, but what I love most is that it takes everything I have seen in this country and articulates it back to me through the understanding of an American-Vietnamese person, giving depth and meaning to all the crazy phenomena I see every day but can't figure out how to describe.

I befriended a slightly insane Vietnamese girl who is living indefinitely in the bed across from me at my hostel, and have been listening to her ramblings non-stop ever since. I've spent plenty of my nights at the bia hoi corner, befriending travelers, drinking 10 cent beers and getting a kick out of their abundant stories of Southeast Asian antics. I met some Canadians and an English girl when I went to see the perfume pagoda, and we have had some interesting Hanoi adventures.

Last night for example, we were hanging out at one of the beer stands on the corner when the fun police shut it down at 11pm. We went to a bar down by the lake, which was known to stay open illegally until the wee hours of the morning. Around 2am, the not-so-fun police showed up and started screaming at everyone in Vietnamese to leave immediately. Not wanting to mess with the intimidation Socialist police, we obediently left - I don't even want to know what happened to the owners of the bar.

Time to hop on my train though, I'll add a final post about Vietnam when I arrive in Beijing.

Hanoi Part I

Our first full day in Hanoi --

We wandered around checking out the thousands of little shops the line narrow streets of the Old City, and eventually made our way over to the train station, where I tried to buy a ticket to Beijing. No such luck, I would either have to catch the train that left in two hours or take one on September 25! Class starts on the 3rd -- I would have to resort to flying...

We found a chic, French-Vietnamese style cafe for some drinks and to get out of the scorching heat, and then headed up to a gourmet Vietnamese buffet restaurant in the renovated courtyard of an old Buddhist temple for lunch. Finally we had some good Vietnamese food!! Almost none of our expectations had been met up until now with regard to food in Vietnam, but this place was fantastic. We left happy and with full stomachs for the first time in weeks.

After lunch we went to visit the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, where the former president who had explicitly demanded to be cremated after dying, is preserved and put on display for all to see -- Lenin style.

We explored the streets around our hotel that evening and ended up at a bia hoi place (10 cent draught beers) where Brian met a crazy Irish guy who invited us to come see the illegal street races with him at the lake. We went down to a balcony bar to watch the insanity unfold, but the police had their way and shut down the festivities before they could begin.

After spending some more time at one of the shady, hole-in-the-wall bia hoi places (they are basically closets on the street with a few kegs and a ton of plastic chairs that spill out onto the sidewalk), we found out that the city completely closes down at 11pm. Apparently the "fun police" have decided that all sinful behavior takes place after 11, so there is a city-wide curfew that causes scrambling and lowering of steel gates in front of every store, bar, restaurant, and hotel each night. The night was still young in out books, so we took hopped in a cab to take us to an Irish pub called Finnegans. The driver assured us it would be open, but when we pulled up the steel gate was down. He honked his horn and the gate quickly lifted just enough for us to squeeze underneath and enter the lively, very still-open pub. We met everyone who was in there - all Irish and ALL named Brian, and had a great night chatting with everyone about politics, business, Vietnam, the people, the food, you name it. At one point, all the light and music were turned off and we were told to be quiet. The police were doing a rove of the street outside and they might hear us (sounds like the dorms at TCNJ). After they passed by, they lights and music came back on, and the beer continued to flow.

When we were ready to leave, Brian, Irish Brian, and I crawled back under the steel gate and back onto the ghost town of street where a cab had been called for us. We hopped in and realized that no one knew the name of our streets. (They all sound the same!!) We made up a few names that sounded right and imitated any combination of "Nguyen" "Pho" and "Long" that we could think of, hoping the driver would have any idea where we wanted to go. He didn't. A guy on a motorbike passed our taxi and had a map, so we took it and showed the driver where to go. After a crazy adventure through the streets of Hanoi and harassing the taxi driver, we made it back to our hotel only to find out that the hotels all put down steel gates at 11 also. We were locked out! After knocking and yelling for a few minutes we figured out how to pry open the gate. We crawled under and found our way back to the dorm room where we were sleeping.

The next day we explored more of the streets, which are all named after what product is sold there. "Bat Dan" - wooden bowl street, "Hang Cot" - bamboo lattice street, "Lo Su" - coffin street, "Hang Khoai" - sweet potato street, etc... The shops really all do sell the same things. It's amazing how they are organized. We came across a store selling war propaganda posters. Some were translated into English:

"The Southern female guerrillas are truly full of guts."

"Determined to defeat the American invaders so our children can sleep in peace."

They would have made great dorm decorations if they weren't being sold for 25 bucks each. Oh well.

We visited the "Hanoi Hilton" -- the POW camp where John McCain was held during the Vietnam War. It's unbelievable how blatant the propaganda and lies are that the signs and pamphlets provide. "American soldiers were treated as our fellow brothers. They enjoyed the luxuries of basketball games, delicious Vietnamese food, and care packages from home. Many were sad to leave when they were released." Are you kidding?!? This place is infamous for the torture that took place here.

For Brian's last-night dinner we went the fanciest Vietnamese restaurant in town, wearing shorts and t-shirts (oops). The food was fantastic. We had some more bia hoi and went to the lake to watch the illegal motorbike racing again. This time the action was much better than the night before. Police were everywhere with their clubs ready to beat people off their bikes, and government trucks were spraying water all around the loop to make it dangerously slippery. We saw a few racers going damn fast, dodging through heavy Hanoi traffic, but we got tired and went to sleep before the real races began.

The next morning Brian left for the airport for his 30 hour flight back home, and I hopped on a bus to go to Halong Bay.

The Adventure of a Lifetime

Off the train and into Hanoi. My first impression was that this was a more crowded and chaotic version of Saigon - but I digress. I'll discuss the city more in my next post - on to the good stuff... Prepare for a long read.

--- DAY 1 ---

We took a cab into the Old City where we picked up a pair of Russian beauties: two Soviet-era "Minsk" motorcycles. Four-speed, manual transmission, 2 stroke engine, loud, powerful, smelly, and perfect for a week long adventure into the rugged, isolated mountains of the northwest.

After dealing with all the mandatory bullshit of contracts, deposits, passport copies, learning the correct combination of oil and gasoline, and taking pre-ride pictures to cover our asses when they undoubtedly would try to charge us for "damages" upon our return (we learned our lesson in Thailand with the dirt bikes), we began the first and most anxiety-inspiring leg of our journey - the escape from Hanoi. Recall my description of the traffic in Saigon, then multiply that by 1000 in terms of volume, speed, and insanity. There are no rules, and the other drivers are ruthless! Before we could finally relax out on the open road, we had to weave and dodge our way through about 15 miles of the clusterfuck that is Hanoi - hell. After almost losing each other a few times in the sea of scooters, stalling out at "traffic lights" while quickly learning the quirks of our bikes out of survival necessity, and a few close calls with homicidal tractor trailers, we made it out onto the highway and breathed our first breath of oxygenated air (don't come to Hanoi if you have any problems with respiration). By the way, it was night at this point, which made our escape all the more exciting.

About an hour outside the city we stopped for the first time to let our adrenaline levels settle, check our map, and grab some water at a small night-market. The women and kids at the market all crowded around us to check out these crazy "Canadians" who had somehow found their way to this tiny, obscure corner of the world (the anti-American sentiment in North Vietnam is still prevalent enough to warrant a temporary change of nationality). We used our handy-dandy phrasebook to answer their questions about who we were, how old we were, where we were from etc... They told us which direction to go, and we continued on our way after picking up a bag of delicious peaces from one of their stalls. About one hour later, we arrived in a small town called Hoa Binh, where we spent out first night. (Still pretty close to Hanoi, but we didn't want to drive any farther in the dark.) We went out to find some dinner and we were called over to a tent with a stove and a bunch of plastic chairs by a group of locals in their late 20s. They collectively knew about 15 sentences in English, but it was still a lot of fun trying to communicate with them. They offered us round-after-round of the local rice liquor, which we had to politely decline after about the 10th shot. We decided not to order the monkey-brain soup that they were all eating, and we opted for pho beef noodle soup instead - a little monotonous at this point but much more appealing. They paid for our dinner and said good night. (We still gave the owners a few bucks.)

--- DAY 2 ---

Hoa Binh - Son La

Today was the most amazing drive of my life:

We woke up early to hit the road and were blown away when the daylight revealed how quickly the scenery had changed since Hanoi. Already we were well on our way up into the mountains. We began to see our first Montangards - the local hill tribes of the northwest who have no cultural, ethnic, or linguistic relation to the lowland Vietnamese. Gliding down smoothly paved roads past bright-orange August corn ripe for harvesting, ambivalently fat grazing water buffalo, smiling hill tribe children, sun soaked valleys with a mixture of jagged peaks in the background and rolling green hills in the foreground, and miles of clear blue skies - we began to let go of the tensions that had been building up over the past few hectic days of travel through Vietnam.

As we began to ascend our first serious hills, we quickly learned how to manipulate the gears to help us maintain speed and control. It didn't take very long to get comfortable with the bikes. (And yes Mom, I finally wore those dog tags you gave me just in case I fell off the side of a cliff and someone needed to identify my body.) We navigated a few sections of wide, winding switchbacks up and down the small mountains in the lower regions and dropped into flat valleys with straightaways that took us past vast fields of rice paddies and cornfields. Every now and then the beauty was too much for us to bear and we stopped to take some photos. (Most of the time, however, we stayed on our bikes through the really dramatically beautiful sections, so the pictures I have don't even come close to doing our experience justice. We arrived in a town called Son La after about 250 kilometers and settled down for the night. Brian tended to his severely sunburnt arms, and I boasted about the benefits of sunscreen. We did a little exploring of the markets, but there wasn't too much to see in the small, dusty town.

--- DAY 3 ---

Son La - Dien Bien Phu

Today was the most amazing drive of my life:

We were jolted awake, bright and early, by the bugling of "Reveille" as the town's troops were called to assemble in the sports stadium below our window for morning exercises. Without being able to get much more sleep, we set off. It took us a few tries to get the bikes started, and we were a little concerned, but we figured out that after a cool night in the mountains we needed to switch the choke down before trying to kick start them. (Another step that feels like second nature in retrospect.) Once again, immediately and dramatically, the road and landscape changed completely. The smooth pavement and then short (very random) six-lane highway leading up to Son La gave way to a tiny one-lane dirt road which snaked up through the steep hills to the northwest. Not sure if we had accidentally taken the wrong route out of town, I asked around a few times and we were assured that this was the only way to Dien Bien. After clearing the first set of 10% grade dirt switchbacks, we dropped into a beautiful valley of low, terraced rice paddies being worked by hordes of hill tribe members. We encountered almost no ethnic-Vietnamese from here on out. As we ascended the mountains and continued our journey, the locals became increasingly more colorful. The hill tribes are known for their ornate dress, and they really do look like they are shown in pictures. This is no tourist gimmick, just a patch of sincere, untainted, traditional lifestyles in one of the most remote parts of Southeast Asia.

We tried to take some pictures, but we felt like we were invading their privacy and treating them like zoo animals, so we refrained until we got to Sapa a few days later. Furthermore, some of the tribes believe that photographs steal their souls, so they try to hide every time they see a camera - another reason for the lack of hill tribe pictures (sorry! you'll just have to come see for yourselves!)

The novelty of the open road soon wore off, and the adrenaline rush that accompanies an awakened consciousness of our fragile mortality soon kicked in as we entered the most humbling 100km of our trip. Not only were the jagged peaks of the massive mountains that soared thousands of feet above our heads enough to make anyone feel insignificant, but we also entered the zone of rainy season landslides, which cause such horrible road conditions that you begin to thank God for your life after every heart-pounding switchback over rocky, gravel and dirt "roads" with potholes that looked big enough to be remnant bombing scars from the French or American wars. I am positive that some of these potholes were bottomless, and that every now and then a little Vietnamese kid falls through and pops out on the other side of the world somewhere near Paterson, New Jersey. To make matters worse, trucks the size of battleships come barreling down the one-lane roads at lightning speed, with no regard whatsoever for us puny motorcycle drivers. I'm convinced that some of them try with all their might to knock us off the sheer cliffs at every chance they get. Almost worse than having a truck race around a bend toward you is being stuck behind one. The dust they kick up is blinding and burrows into the darkest depths of the tiniest alveolar cavities in your lungs, leaving no option to stay behind the trucks, you have to pass them. This must be done quickly and with complete blind faith - the only time to pass is when the truck slows down while taking on one of the hairpin switchbacks. At the exact moment your intuition tells you to go, you hit the clutch and pop the bike down into 2nd or 3rd gear, pray for your life, and race around the truck as fast as you can while trying to avoid any oncoming traffic on the narrow turn.

Whenever we were able to take a break from concentrating on the road and enjoy the scenery, we were blown away by the astounding valleys, peaks, villages, and locals. The English language doesn't offer a way to accurately convey the extreme beauty of the landscape, and I can only use the same 10 adjectives so many times before I start getting repetitive, so I won't even try -- look at the pictures. The scenery for the rest of the trip was really really really really really nice. Period.

The last 30km into Dien Bien Phu was some of the bumpiest terrain we had crossed all day (I say terrain instead of road because I can't bring myself to call what we were driving on a "road"). Hours of violent bumps took their toll on my bike and two of the screws broke off the rack to which I had strapped my bag. The bungee cords began snapping and by the time I noticed, I had lost my water bottle and the map. We spent the rest of the trip navigating by the sun and the stars (and asking people where to go, the signage is not too shabby either). After 6 hours, we arrived in Dien Bien Phu and found a hotel. I'm not sure the owners could tell that there were humans beneath the layers of dirt caked onto our faces and clothes, and they showed us directly to the shower, somewhat confused. We fell asleep as soon as we showered and plopped onto the beds, woke up for dinner a little later, and went back to sleep for the night. What an exhausting day!!! We noticed that as we got further from civilization, fewer and fewer people could speak any English, so we decided to try our luck with learning some more Vietnamese phrases. We taught ourselves how to count from 1 to 999, and it became a vital tool for the rest of our trip. We used our new number skills to do everything from negotiating the price of a hotel room to explaining to fascinated locals that, yes, Brian is indeed almost 2 meters tall.

--- DAY 4 ---

Dien Bien Phu - Lai Chau

Today was the most amazing drive of my life:

Another day of incredible luck with the weather, it was sunny and warm and beautiful. The roads were still winding and exciting, but they were paved and smooth! Hallelujah! We were deep within the heart of hill tribe country, and we were still climbing in altitude -- over 1 mile at this point. As we dipped through valleys and climbed over high passes into river gorges and over rolling hills, we passed through a sequence of varied micro climates - some hot and dry, some cool and damp, and some with an occasional misting of light rain. We crossed over mighty rivers, so silted that the water was a darker brown than chocolate milk. We dodged suicidal cows and water buffalo who thought the middle of the road was a perfect place for a nap. And we waved to the endless flow of smiling children who always jumped up to greet us with a hearty "hellooo!" even while there parents stared on with confused glares.

This was the day that I experienced motorcycle Zen. There is something hypnotic about the natural flow of zigging and zagging, leaning left and right, gliding around smoothly paved switchbacks at regular intervals on a warm sunny day in one of the most beautiful wildernesses on Earth. It inspires a feeling of peace unmatched by any experience that I can use as a justified comparison.

After only three hours, we reached the town of "Lai Chau" only to find that it had been renamed to Tan May, or something like that. The government had decided that another town about 80 kilometers to the north would make a much better Lai Chau, so they swapped names. Since we had planned on spending the night in Lai Chau, and since we were hours ahead of schedule, we decided to continue on to the new Lai Chau to spend the night.

While we were stopped taking pictures of a pool full of water buffalo, Brian's bike slipped off the kickstand and the clutch handle cracked very slightly. We didn't notice until about an hour later when we slowed down to navigate a patch of mud puddles, and he found the handle dangling by the cable. The crack had worked its way all the way through, and the handle had completely cracked off. By an act of God, this happened just as we were approaching a small village that just happened to have mechanics who just happened to know exactly how to fix Minsk motorcycles. Twenty minutes and 4 dollars later the handle was fixed, and we were about to head off, but the mechanics called our attention to a massive storm that was building just over the hills across the Chinese border. A wall of black clouds descended upon the village and it began to downpour. We spent about an hour at a little restaurant eating lunch and enjoying the serenity of the storm and small village life. We made it to the new Lai Chai just before it started to rain again, and had some horrible food in town for dinner. (We hadn't been to impressed with Vietnamese food up to this point.)

--- DAY 5 ---

Lai Chau - Sapa

Today was the most amazing drive of my life:

Of course - the one day we REALLY wanted clear, sunny weather, the clouds and fog rolled in with a vengeance. The dreary weather and change in landscape made me think of the English countryside with small farms bordered by piled stone walls and little brooks flowing alongside the winding road. (Except this version of the English countryside had 10,000 ft high mountains in the background.) We had tons of energy for the drive, and the thick air made everything very peaceful. We zoomed across the rolling hills, enjoying the lack of other cars or people in this VERY remote corner of Vietnam. After stopping in a hut at the peak of a hill for lunch, we continued on to the Trom Tan Pass - the highest mountain pass in Southeast Asia next to the tallest mountain in Vietnam. The views were awesome. We stopped at the edge of a cliff overlooking the mountains, and laid out on some rocks for a while to take in the scenery and relax in the brief patch of sun. We were joined by a young hill tribe kid who sat down to watch us before running off to climb a 50 foot sheer cliff behind us by pulling himself up from vine to vine (show off).

Sapa had always seemed like some far off fantasy destination in my mind. The unattainable. The beacon at the end of a the tunnel, but finally - 5 days and 800 kilometers later, we arrived. We didn't expect much from the former French hill station - judging by the many dreary towns we had passed through on our way up, but we were pleasantly surprised by the charm of the place. It is a small, quaint town with European efficiency and layout, inhabited by hill tribes, and bombarded with tourists. I was disappointed to see Westerners again, having successfully evaded them for the past five days, but we really appreciated the tourist infrastructure that had followed them to Sapa: good food, hot showers, ENGLISH, etc...

We randomly bumped into the Spanish people again that I had met a week earlier on the train to Hanoi, and we chatted for a while about our respective adventures and where to get a decent dinner. They re-extended their offer for me to visit them in the spring, which I might just do.

Finally we felt comfortable taking pictures of the colorful locals. We felt that as long as they were hawking us and trying to nag us into buying their goods, it would be okay to snap some photos.

--- DAY 6 ---

Sapa - Hanoi

Sapa was very nice, but we decided to leave early the next day and try to make it all the way back to Hanoi in one long stretch. As soon as we were nearing the edge of the city, my bike started puttering and stalling every time I tried to start it. I was getting pretty worried, thinking maybe the gas attendant had put in the wrong combination of gas and oil. A Vietnamese guy came over and helped us change the spark plug, which we thought might have been the problem, but that didn't help. We rolled the bike across the street, where by an act of God once again, there just happened to be a mechanic who knew Minsks. He immediately removed the carburetor and cleaned it out. Huge blobs of gook and dirt splashed onto the floor, and he reattached it and started up the engine which revved to life and purred like a kitten. He charged me about a dollar and we went on our way. (Gotta love cheap labor!!)

It was another cloudy day, and the first few hours of the drive were cloudy and a little depressing. We stopped for lunch at our 6 hour halfway point, and by the time we got back on the road the weather had gotten sunny and warm again. As we drove further back into civilization the roads got wider and we could finally pick up some speed. When we got out of the mountains and into the lower, flatter region around Hanoi, the landscape began to look exactly like how I would have imagined Vietnam - dense jungle with miles of rice paddies, a snaking road winding around the lowland hills, and women with conical hats carrying goods over their backs. Finally, we began to see signs of urban life. Traffic increased tenfold and the roads again became hectic and maddening. We relearned the tricks to dodging other motorbikes and suffered the black exhaust fumes of government trucks. After following signs that lead us through an impossible maze of side roads, we began to approach the city. Four land highways became dirt roads which became town centers which became industrial wastelands. Cows were everywhere, and they have the right of way. About 60 kilometers from the city we could see an enormous storm rolling in, so we stopped to put our ponchos just in time as torrents of heavy rain began to pummel us with its stinging cold. We had nowhere to stop, and we wanted to get back into the city before the bike rental place closed, so we continued through the storm - probably the most unenjoyable experience of my life. My sunglasses were fogging up, so I had to take them off and rely on squinting to keep the rain out of my eyes. The roads got muddy, and traffic got crazier. We were going as slow as our bikes would go, and it seemed like nature was doing everything it could to prevent us from getting back into the city. We were lucky as hell that this was our only experience with rain -- being the rainy season, it usually rains every day in the mountains, but we had pretty great weather the whole time.

After a total of 11 hours (a hell of a long trip!!) we made it back to the rental place just after it closed. We locked up our bikes and went back to the hotel to collect our bags and find a room.

We made it. Alive. We conquered 6 days and 1,200km (800 miles) of some of the most challenging motorcycling terrain in the region. We climbed to an altitude of 10,000 feet and back down. We explored beautiful landscapes and experienced an exotic, traditional way of life. Truly this has been the experience of a lifetime, and what a way to culminate an already inredible adventure!

Here are the new pictures ---

http://picasaweb.google.com/MxMrshll/Asia3

Racing Up the Coast to Hanoi

We casually caught a taxi to the train station for out 10pm departure, with plenty of time to spare. However, when we arrived we were told the train had already left!! We pulled out our tickets, and sure enough they said 20:00 - damn international/military time! We had been doing so well up until that point. We reluctantly spent another 15 bucks and hopped on the next train to Nha Trang - the "beach capital" of Vietnam.

The train was packed and noisy, and it reeked of durians, but we settled into our top-bunk hard sleeper beds and tried to sleep (the ear plugs only help so much). Like roosters at sunrise, every Vietnamese person on the train woke up at 5am and started yelling - so we didn't sleep very late. We got off the train at about 6:30, had some pho for breakfast, left our bags at a hotel, and walked down the street to check out a Buddhist temple.

This was definitely an impressive one. It was a bigger and more elaborate temple/monastery complex than most of the simple pagodas we have come across - covering an entire hill that overlooked the city with its campus. We were greeted by a friendly monk at the entrance to the main prayer hall who asked where we were from. When we said Canada he became very excited and pulled up his shirt to reveal a maple-leaf belt buckle. He gave us a tour of the complex, explaining the various Buddha statues and making us "pray" to him (shake incense at him) before we took pictures. After climbing to the peak of the hill where there was a 25 meter tall white Buddha, he asked us for a whopping 200,000 dong donation "because monks need to eat". We gave him 6 bucks, and he tried to take my compass, but I assured him it was worth way more than 30,000 dong. He left us, pissed, and we escaped down the hill.

We spent the rest of the day laying on beach chairs by the cool water of the South China Sea. I finished off another book while Brian went to explore some Cham towers and a small fishing village where he spent the afternoon with some locals. After a week of intense traveling and exploring, a lazy day on the beach was exactly what I needed.

We hopped back on the train for another night ride up the coast to Da Nang. We arrived 4 hours late and hopped in a taxi with some German girls we had met for the ride down to Hoi An. We stopped at rock formation called the Marble Mountain, where we went to explore some caves and pagodas.

Before I left for this trip I read a book called Fourth Uncle in the Mountain - about a Vietnamese boy who grows up with the influences of a local animist/mystical religion in the Mekong Delta. (If you haven't read it, you should - if you have, this will make sense to you.) There is a scene in the book where the boy ventures into the remote jungle mountains by the border of Cambodia to study meditation with a 200 year old Buddhist monk. Hiking up the Marble Mountains and squeezing into narrow cave entrances that open up into huge caverns with tiny beams of light peaking through the ceiling, illuminating the smoky, incensed air brought me right back into the story of that boy - very cool.

We made it down to Hoi An before sunset and checked into a hotel in the middle of the Old City. Hoi An is a former Portuguese port, which is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is filled with beautiful colonial, stucco buildings that glow a deep yellow in the evening sun, women with traditional conical hats, and tailors and cobblers that produce custom clothing and shoes in only a few hours. We found a tailor and ordered suits and shirts to be made for the next morning. I got a black cashmere suit and a pastel green shirt for only 60 dollars. Later along our stroll through the town, I found a cobbler to make me a pair of very nice suede sneakers for less than 20 bucks - custom made to fit my feet. We spent the evening on the waterfront drinking bia hoi, the world's cheapest draught beer - 15 cents a mug!

The next day we did a walking tour of the city, got some great photos, drank a few more bia hois, picked up our clothes, bought duffel bags for 2 bucks to put our suits in, and got back on the train for the 18 hour trip all the way up the coast to Hanoi.

This ride was much worse than the last one. They only had one hard-sleeper, air-con bed available. Brian made the sacrifice and took the bed in the fan room with a piece of plywood, a straw mat, and 20 inches of head room, where he suffered for the duration of the 24 hour ride. (Yes, of course it got to Hanoi 6 hours late.) We spent a lot of time standing in the hallway of the air-con car - there is nowhere else to go unless you are sleeping in your bed that has no room for sitting up. I met a couple from Barcelona with whom I had hours of great conversation to distract me from my boredom. Unfortunately for Brian, this all took place in Spanish, so he was left out of the loop. (At least he could pick up the general topics.) We exchanged information at the end of the ride and they invited me to visit them when I study in Spain this spring.

Once again, like clockwork, the Vietnamese were awake and screaming at 5am. I've come to the conclusion that there is some obscure linguistic quality to the Vietnamese language which necessitates screaming everything said to ensure successful communication in the early hours of the morning. Fed up, Brian and I began screaming English to each other in retribution, and no one seemed to notice.

We spent the rest of the day on the train doing whatever we could to distract ourselves from not being able to sit or sleep or do anything comfortably. Finally, we got off the train at 4pm and headed into the city to begin our adventure into the Tonkinese Alps of the northwest.

Saigon? Ho Chi Minh City?

So I guess Vietnam is supposed to be a Socialist country? It doesn't seem like it. The government may control the people's lives a little bit, but Capitalism is king when it comes to business. There was not much of a drastic change when we crossed the border from Cambodia - more rice paddies and lots of motorbikes, but we could read the signs at least (they use the Roman alphabet).

We arrived in Saigon in the middle of the afternoon, and decided to drop our stuff off at a hotel and wander the neighborhood. (Officially it is known as Ho Chi Minh City, but all the signs still say Sai Gon and all the people call it Sai Gon -- just don't say Saigon to a government official!) We unloaded ALL of our clothes at the front desk to get our first laundry done since Thailand, and set off for the central market to buy a shirt or two for the next day. After being violently manhandled by the women in the clothing market who really know how to force you to buy their products, we managed to escape back to the street with a few $4 knock-off Polo shirts (good quality!). We briefly explored the waterfront of the Saigon River before getting some dinner and passing out.

The next morning we started our day with a bowl of pho - the traditional Vietnamese beef noodle soup breakfast. Lonely Planet has a suggested itinerary and map for walking around Saigon and seeing all the sights in one day, so we decided to follow it. The beginning of the route brought us through some of the ordinary streets of the city, full of cone-hatted women selling fruit (yes - everyone really wears the cone-shaped hats), charming French buildings, and thousands of motorbikes. The roads here are so chaotic that the traffic lights are generally disregarded, which means crossing the street can seem like a death wish - but after watching the locals do it a few times we got the hang of it. There is a constant flow of vespas and motorcycles, and they never stop for pedestrians. You have to step directly into traffic and slowly move across the road as the bikes swerve around you. It's pretty exhilarating. Brian describes it as a game of human frogger.

We stopped at the city's cathedral and walked through some of the European-looking parks. The charm of Saigon's layout, architecture, and concern for aesthetics is definitely unmatched by any city we have been to in the region (once again, thanks to the French I'm sure).

We visited the War Remnants Museum (formerly called the Chinese and American War Atrocities Museum) to get an idea of the Vietnamese perspective of the "American War." It was a very small museum with an enormous impact. They leave nothing to the imagination in the photos and descriptions of the crimes committed against their people. I'll probably have nightmares about what I saw that day - it was just as moving as Yad Vashem - the Holocaust museum near Jerusalem. The weapons we used against the Vietnamese were unbelievably barbaric. Bombs filled with thousands of nail-darts to increase "enemy" casualties? Phosphorus bombs that melt the skin away from the victims without killing them completely?? Agent Orange?!? No wonder people were rioting in the streets back home - this wasn't a war it was a rampage of civilian mutilation. The scars are still seen everywhere. Special bikes have been invented to accommodate the hundreds and hundreds of agent orange victims who's limbs are too deformed to pedal a regular bicycle - we saw these every few blocks. Although the exhibit was clearly biased, it got the point across and reconfirmed my belief that no war is justified unless it is immediate self defense. Nothing gets accomplished and the civilians are the ones who suffer most of the aggression. Look at Iraq - approximately 70,000 civilians killed?!? Insane.

-- read the caption --

Ugh.. back to Saigon - it is really really hot. 100 degrees and 100% humidity. Ouch! We found an air conditioned restaurant in a French neighborhood and enjoyed some great cheap French food before stopping in a French bakery/cafe for dessert. Colonization is a greedy and unfair system, but it sure does leave a charming legacy behind. We ended our tour of the city at a beautiful Buddhist pagoda where some famous incidents of monk self-immolation occurred during the war.

We spent the evening wandering the energetic streets around our hotel, watching the crazy locals go about their capitalistic endeavors with humor and determination. We stopped at a cafe to look at the menu. Once we saw the prices and started to leave, the young woman who owned the place cried out "Oh my God! Whyyyy??" Later on we were strolling down the street when a few restaurant owners whipped out a stack of fake 100 dollar bills and started burning them on the sidewalk. (Americans are not too popular here, which is why we're from Vancouver now, eh?) During dinner a young street performer started spinning burning sticks and then proceeded to feed a meter-long, live snake into his nose and pull it out through his mouth. A little later, a small girl came up to us with a case of cigarettes. Brian asked her "aren't you too young to be smoking?" She instantly replied - "you no smoke you die!" These people will stop at nothing to get your money.

Aside from the brutal reminders of an unjust past, Saigon is by far my favorite city here. It is clean, modern, and organized, yet it is also home to a profoundly rich culture and delicious cuisine. And the women are beautiful - Vietnam wins.

Cambodia

If Singapore is like a Western city, and Thailand is a mix between the Caribbean and Disneyland, then Cambodia is nothing short of an adventure into an ancient and untainted land. Even though some aspects of the country seem more American than the other places we have visited -- for example: they use the US dollar and they drive on the right side of the road -- it is as far from home as I've ever felt.

Our bus from Bangkok reeked of the usual Thai tourist extortion, but we made it to the Cambodian border without losing our minds/wallets completely. After departing Thailand officially and entering the "no man's land" between the two kingdoms, we were given a preview to the desperate poverty of the Khmer nation. Hordes of small children, no older than five, walked through our group from person to person begging for food or money. After an American girl we had met gave one of the kids a bag of crackers, a little girl who must have just learned to walk a month before hobbled over and started pulling at a Canadian guy's pant leg with tears in her eyes and dirt on her face. He had just given some loose change to the boy with the crackers, so the little girl must have thought he was an easy target. He had nothing else to give her, and we started walking toward the immigration counter on the Cambodian side. She followed us for another few yards but then gave up and turned back into the crowd of people walking the same direction as we were. The last image in my mind of the Cambodian border is that little girl tripping over someone's foot and tumbling into the sea of people before I lost sight of her.

We hopped on another bus to continue our journey into the Cambodian heartland across 8 hours of unpaved roads. When I say unpaved I mean a crater-pocked moonscape of a dirt road. I'm pretty sure some of these potholes were bottomless, and although it was probably bumpier than riding a jackhammer, it was an incredibly scenic drive. The people we passed look like they hadn't changed their lifestyle for the past few hundred years. Families in the vast expanses of rice paddies harvesting their crops, renegade Brahman cows playing chicken in front of the bus, naked toddlers throwing rocks at each other, you get the picture... By the time we got to Siem Reap it was late and we were all exhausted. The American girl, Ashleigh, shared a room with us at the hotel where we were dropped off, and we bargained the room down to $2 each. We passed out - a full-day bus ride will drain every ounce of energy from your body and mind.

The next morning we woke up at 4 o'clock to catch sunrise at Angkor Wat (the biggest and arguably most famous ancient religious complex on the planet -- Tomb Raider was filmed here for those of you who don't know where I'm talking about). Continuing our bad luck streak with weather, it was cloudy and the sunrise wasn't too impressive. However, "not too impressive" is a relative statement when the soft morning light slowly unveils an enormous and magnificent temple that you've only seen in pictures. It was still fantastic.

I really can't begin to describe the overwhelming intricacy of the detail and the massive scale of the structures, so I won't -- look at my pictures of it. My camera died early on in the day so what I have is what I have.

http://picasaweb.google.com/MxMrshll/Asia2/photo#5097404702127704930

We had a great time riding around the ruins on our hired tuk tuk, and had seen everything our exhausted bodies were willing to see by around 1 pm, when we headed into town to find some food. We stumbled upon a traditional Khmer restaurant in the middle of the town and decided sample the local cuisine and beer. (Khmer is the adjective for the people, culture, and language of Cambodia if you were wondering.) It was surprisingly delicious, and it definitely rivaled the culinary behemoth of a neighbor that is Thailand. I had a dish called amok, which is a spicy curry with fresh water fish and vegetables.

After a good 4 hours of napping, the three of us met up with two Germans from the bus and headed into town to find dinner at a restaurant that we heard had crocodiles. It was a very nice place with a chill atmosphere, where we sat on pillows on the floor of a loft overlooking a live band to the right and a crocodile pit below us to the left. The beer was disgustingly cheap, and the food was once again terrific. We went for an after-dinner snack at a place called "Happy Pizza" and enjoyed another fine example of Cambodia's local cuisine. On our walk back to the hotel, we strolled through the very energetic town and stocked up on mangosteens and dragonfruit.

The next morning, Ashleigh, Brian, and I hopped on a bus to Phnom Penh - the capital. Luckily the road was paved, but it still took forever to get there. We checked into a hotel, bought our bus tickets to Vietnam for the next morning, and set off to explore this new and intriguing city. Walking down the wide, organized streets, it was obvious that the colonial French had done a lot for this city. It was immeasurably more logical and relaxed than Bangkok, and it had a very charming energy. We reached the riverfront, which is at the junction of the Tonle Sap River and the Mekong River, and headed toward the Grand Palace and Silver Pagoda to check out the main tourist must-see sights. On our way we ran into a few monks who were around our age and were more interested in our friend Ashley than a good, pious monk should be, but it was great to interact with them. There wasn't much substantial exchange, but they were curious about life back in the states, and they really wanted to know about our national museum...?

We continued on to the palaces and walked around the complex admiring the detailed and ornate architecture. The pagodas here and the grounds surrounding them were more tasteful and interesting that their counterparts in Bangkok, in my opinion at least. Out of nowhere it started to downpour and we huddled under a pagoda with a bunch of monks who were once again very interested in Ashley and tried to invite her back to their house. Is that kosher? Who knows...

When the rain stopped, we wandered out to the waterfront and watched the sunset against the golden roofs of the royal compound. What was great about being out there was the fact that most of the people around us were Cambodians enjoying their evening. This was probably the most famous place in the capital, and it was not mobbed by tourists! Amazing!

This was one of my favorite aspects of Cambodia -- it is the least touristy destination in the region. The roads are too rough, the people too poor, and the memory of the brutal reign of the Khmer Rouge still fresh in international collective memory. Because of this it is still unique, it is still untainted, and it is still raw. It is a true gem of a destination, and I really hope the road between Thailand and Siem Reap NEVER gets paved because once it does the world will discover this place, and it will be ruined forever. I'm truly lucky to have seen it before that happens - I give it five more years.

The next morning, we said goodbye to Ashleigh and hopped on another bus to Saigon.