To get from Luang Prabang, Laos, into Thailand, we had a few options: a flight, expensive and not recommended since Laos Air won't release its crash statistics, which are assumed to be high; a rickety, bumpy bus that may or may not have gone the whole way; a fast boat, taking 6 hours, but for which crash helmets and life jackets are mandatory and which kills some people every year; or a slow boat, two 10-hour days on a bench-seated wooden ferry chugging along at a few kilometers an hour. Much preferring slowness to unnecessary danger, we chose the latter option, and though there is no denying that it was not the most scintillating or comfortable way to spend a couple days, there was a quiet beauty in the trip. For the majority of the trip, no road was visible from the Mekong; until recently, the river was the only mode of transport through much of Loas, and in some places it still is. There were occasional villages of stilt-legged wooden houses perched high up the cliffs, with steep sandy paths leading down to the river. We passed groups of people, including children, standing in knee-deep water bowed over large metal trays, sifting for gold. In the rapids that dotted the river there would often be fishermen gathered with poles and nets. Late in the day we saw a solitary elephant bathing near the banks, having seemingly finished a day of pulling logs nearby. A couple times, we passed other ferries (which seems to serve as a houseboat for the families who operate them) moving in the opposite direction, and a couple times the narrow, treacherous speedboats zoomed past. Other than that, though, the river was quiet and empty, save for goats and water buffaloes grazing and wading by the banks. The nights were spent in villages that seem to have their entire economies based on the tourist ferry traffic, with competing grungy guesthouses and unsavory restaurants lining the steets. The second of these was just across the river from Thailand, and in the morning we took a 5 minute ferry across to the border.
Northwestern Thailand is renowned as an area of great beauty, with lush rolling hills. Unfortunately, at this time of year (the hottest and driest), all we could do was try to imagine what it would look like, because everywhere we could see was dusty and desiccated. The air was still slightly smokey, although nowhere near as bad as it had been a week ealier (like in Luang Prabang), when forest fires and human-set fires were raging and smog levels were dangerously high. We took a bus from the border to Chiang Rai, a small, nondescript town (maybe also pretty in the right season) with a very laid-back atmosphere. Our friend Mark, from Bali/Singapore, was there with some other friendly, artsy, adventurous people he had met, and we found all of them at their guesthouse-- a place with a pool, wonderful in the heat, that was a clear magnet for the aging hippy ex-pats (many of them with Thai wives) that northern Thailand is known for. The weather and the profusion of unappealing tourist agencies combined to quell our ambitions to go hiking, and we spent much of our time just hanging out with everyone-- two women from Belgium, one from Finland, one from Germany, two men from Oregon, and Mark. Our favorite spot in town was the night market, which had tons of yellow metal tables jammed together in font of a stage (sponsored by Singha Beer) where a constant stream of dancers (some women and some men in drag) and ballad-crooning singers performed. Although it seemed that most of the tourists in town were hanging out at the market, we were collectively vastly outnumbered by locals, which is always an important indication of quality as far as food as concerned. And the food was delicious-- we tried as much as we could stomach from among the 100+ stalls, our favorite dish being a sweet-spicy-sour noodle soup called kaow soi that is typical of the region. There was a stall specializing in bugs, which Erik of course had to try, so we had a little plate of fried worms and crickets and really freakin' huge cockroaches; the woman selling them said not to eat the head, but Erik didn't see why, and at it anyway. (No bad results so far...). It was funny to see the cockroach next to a shrimp, because they really don't look that different, but that rationalization still didn't bring me any closer to tasting the bugs. After our nightly stuffings at the market, we would usually head over to Teepee Bar, a teeny place lined with punk and heavy metal posters, decorated with random bicycle parts, and with two bunnies who ran around as they wished on the upper balcony. We did manage to take in a little bit of "culture" as well, visiting a shocking, blindingly glittery white temple under construction just out of town. The inside walls of the temple were also unique; in addition to the standard images of Buddha, there were murals with dark warnings about modern life: gas pumps leading into the World Trade Center towers, nuclear rockets sporting Pepsi logos, and a tiny Superman looking sadly helpless in the midst of it all.
After a couple days, the Chiang Rai group headed off in different directions, and we left with Mark and Molla (the Finnish woman) for Chiang Mai, Thailand's second largest city, a few hours south. Erik's and my main activity there was to take a one day cooking class, held at the home of, and partially taught by, a popular TV chef. The class was a lot of fun; we made 6 different dishes and had to eat each one, making us totally stuffed. The cooking highlight for me was learning to make our own curry paste in the morning; we mashed roasted spices and herbs using a mortar and pestle, and learned how to preserve the paste as well so it will be feasible to make it at home. But the coolest aspect of the day was not the cooking itself, but a wacky and wonderful coincidence: as we chatted with one of the other women in the class, we figured out that she lives a couple doors down from my Aunt Jill in Phildelphia! Small world. After class, we met up with a woman from Servas, an Australian who has been living in Chiang Mai as an AIDS education volunteer for two years. After drinks with her, we met again with Mark and Molla, and managed despite our fullness to eat some more mango sticky rice, the food highlight of Chiang Mai. (The sticky rice is slightly salty, and topped with the stunningly sweet mango and creamy coconut milk, the combination is indescribably delicious.) Mark and Molla headed off to Bangkok early the next morning. After spending a couple hours in the cheesy but sweet city museum and puttering around a bit, we did the same, being shaken around like martinis in our little bitty bunks on the overnight train.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Laos: Where are we?
After hearing that the bus was an excruciating ride, we decided to fly from Hanoi to the capital of Laos, Vientiane, a strange-feeling and sleepy city on the banks of the Mekong. Leaving the airport, we saw the locals unloading from their version of public transport: people packed tightly into the back of a large flat bed truck. We found another American couple (James and Ewa) to share a minibus ride into town, and found out that they were from Stamford, CT, and that Ewa had immigrated with her family from Poland to New Britain, CT! Our most local connection (in terms of people we've met) in one of the places that seems farthest from anywhere. Vietnam and now Laos also have had by far the largest number of American travelers of any countries we've visited on the trip.
Laos is a place that we've heard people describe as "what Thailand used to be like." Since the Communist takeover in 1973?, it has been a very closed society, which apparently has loosened/opened somewhat during the last decade, especially in terms of tourism and marginally in terms of economic development. That the country's primary economic goal is to crawl out of the U.N. category of "Least Developed Country" by 2020 gives a good indication of its current state. In contrast to the noisiness and crowded conditions of Vietnam, Laos seems quiet, sleep, and empty (granted we were there on a weekend, but the central area of Vientiane seemed depopulated aside from tourists). If I squinted my eyes, I could almost picture an American cityscape: mostly cars instead of scooters on wide roads with wide, empty sidewalks.
After a bit of a search (several accomodations were full, and there seemed to be a good number of tourists around), we found a nice guesthouse, thankfully air conditioned given the heat and humidity, and joined James and Ewa for a riverfront meal after we'd withdrawn from one of the only international ATMs in Laos. The next day, after breakfast at one of the French bakeries, we went to the Laos National Museum. There were some interesting history exhibits, but we thought about something that has struck us at many of the museums we've visited on the trip: how poorly presented and preserved the contents are. It seems like there should be clear opportunities for international collaboration especially in the realm of preservation/physical space maintanence (we imagine foreigners having a role in the content to be a more complicated issue than preservation). Security was also an issue for this museum, as they currently displayed a collection of small gold Buddhas that had been stolen and then recovered several years ago inside of a hulking cage of iron bars that obscured most of the statues.
In the museum's section on the U.S. "secret war" in Laos (during the Vietnam War), it was funny to see the word "imperialist" always follow a mention of the U.S. in photo captions, as in "the U.S imperialist weapon supply." One of the best presented exhibits of the museum was in fact a collaboration between Laos and the Netherlands, detailing a representative of the Dutch East India Company and his travels in Laos in the 1600s. Those Dutch were everywhere during that time period! From home in Hartford to so many other places we've visited: Ghana, South Africa, Mauritius, Indonesia.
Later that day I got a haircut, and then went to a meditation sitting and herbal sauna/massage at a nearby temple, while Rachel went to a spa in town. We met up with James and Ewa that night to drink some green beer for St. Patrick's Day at a local rooftop bar; the waiter brought the bottle of food coloring and squeezed a few drops into our glass before pouring the bottle of beer. We went home after the bar, declining a local's invitation to join him at a club at the recently constructed (by the Chinese) 14-story luxury hotel on the river.
The next day we took the day-long bus to Luang Prabang, a former capital of Laos. Dubbed the "VIP Bus," some buses were double-decker and painted with scenes from the Little Mermaid and said "King of Bus" on the front windshield. We had to settle for a brightly colored bus with purple floral print curtains, but it did come with an unadvertized guard carrying a machine gun, the first time we've had that anywhere. We drove through very primitive looking villages, the houses either wooden or thatched roofs and reed mat sides. We saw huge water buffalos, goats, and small black pigs along the road, as well as a motorized cart vehicle that had a small engine on the front axle and a steering mechanism that made the driver look like someone using a push lawnmower.
The air quality has been really bad in the region due to many fires (mostly from slash and burn agriculture--we saw from the bus a lot of banana trees planted in burned off areas--but also forest fires); some parts of northern Thailand have been designated disaster areas. At one point on the bus ride we were so close to a fire that we felt intense heat for a few seconds passing through. Sadly, as we were already anxious for the bus ride to be over as we neared Laung Prabang (LP), the bus was involved in an accident (not the driver's fault) where one scooter hit another scooter and one of the scooter drivers was knocked into the bus. He was still alive and taken to a hospital.
At our guesthouse in LP, we met another American couple, Zach and Gemma from the Bay area. The next day we visited the Royal Palace, which in addition to stunning glass mosaics, featured state gifts from other countries to Laos (moon rocks from the U.S.). There was also a great contemporary art exhibit with Western artists collaborating with Lao artists in many different media.
The following day, after breakfast at a western coffeehouse that could have been anywhere, the 6 of us Americans took a tuk-tuk (3-wheeled vehicle made from a motorcycle front and two benches with a roof on back) to a nearby waterfall. This is supposed to by the hottest time of the year as well as the driest (the rainy season starts in May), so we figured the waterfall would be a great way to cool off. As we approached however, the sky kept getting darker and darker, and when we finally hiked up to the waterfall the rain poured down in a terrific storm, leaving us drenched and shivering but laughing as we rode back and the rain stopped. The 6 of us had a nice dinner that night, and the next day Rachel and I set off on the slow boat to the Thai border.
Laos is a place that we've heard people describe as "what Thailand used to be like." Since the Communist takeover in 1973?, it has been a very closed society, which apparently has loosened/opened somewhat during the last decade, especially in terms of tourism and marginally in terms of economic development. That the country's primary economic goal is to crawl out of the U.N. category of "Least Developed Country" by 2020 gives a good indication of its current state. In contrast to the noisiness and crowded conditions of Vietnam, Laos seems quiet, sleep, and empty (granted we were there on a weekend, but the central area of Vientiane seemed depopulated aside from tourists). If I squinted my eyes, I could almost picture an American cityscape: mostly cars instead of scooters on wide roads with wide, empty sidewalks.
After a bit of a search (several accomodations were full, and there seemed to be a good number of tourists around), we found a nice guesthouse, thankfully air conditioned given the heat and humidity, and joined James and Ewa for a riverfront meal after we'd withdrawn from one of the only international ATMs in Laos. The next day, after breakfast at one of the French bakeries, we went to the Laos National Museum. There were some interesting history exhibits, but we thought about something that has struck us at many of the museums we've visited on the trip: how poorly presented and preserved the contents are. It seems like there should be clear opportunities for international collaboration especially in the realm of preservation/physical space maintanence (we imagine foreigners having a role in the content to be a more complicated issue than preservation). Security was also an issue for this museum, as they currently displayed a collection of small gold Buddhas that had been stolen and then recovered several years ago inside of a hulking cage of iron bars that obscured most of the statues.
In the museum's section on the U.S. "secret war" in Laos (during the Vietnam War), it was funny to see the word "imperialist" always follow a mention of the U.S. in photo captions, as in "the U.S imperialist weapon supply." One of the best presented exhibits of the museum was in fact a collaboration between Laos and the Netherlands, detailing a representative of the Dutch East India Company and his travels in Laos in the 1600s. Those Dutch were everywhere during that time period! From home in Hartford to so many other places we've visited: Ghana, South Africa, Mauritius, Indonesia.
Later that day I got a haircut, and then went to a meditation sitting and herbal sauna/massage at a nearby temple, while Rachel went to a spa in town. We met up with James and Ewa that night to drink some green beer for St. Patrick's Day at a local rooftop bar; the waiter brought the bottle of food coloring and squeezed a few drops into our glass before pouring the bottle of beer. We went home after the bar, declining a local's invitation to join him at a club at the recently constructed (by the Chinese) 14-story luxury hotel on the river.
The next day we took the day-long bus to Luang Prabang, a former capital of Laos. Dubbed the "VIP Bus," some buses were double-decker and painted with scenes from the Little Mermaid and said "King of Bus" on the front windshield. We had to settle for a brightly colored bus with purple floral print curtains, but it did come with an unadvertized guard carrying a machine gun, the first time we've had that anywhere. We drove through very primitive looking villages, the houses either wooden or thatched roofs and reed mat sides. We saw huge water buffalos, goats, and small black pigs along the road, as well as a motorized cart vehicle that had a small engine on the front axle and a steering mechanism that made the driver look like someone using a push lawnmower.
The air quality has been really bad in the region due to many fires (mostly from slash and burn agriculture--we saw from the bus a lot of banana trees planted in burned off areas--but also forest fires); some parts of northern Thailand have been designated disaster areas. At one point on the bus ride we were so close to a fire that we felt intense heat for a few seconds passing through. Sadly, as we were already anxious for the bus ride to be over as we neared Laung Prabang (LP), the bus was involved in an accident (not the driver's fault) where one scooter hit another scooter and one of the scooter drivers was knocked into the bus. He was still alive and taken to a hospital.
At our guesthouse in LP, we met another American couple, Zach and Gemma from the Bay area. The next day we visited the Royal Palace, which in addition to stunning glass mosaics, featured state gifts from other countries to Laos (moon rocks from the U.S.). There was also a great contemporary art exhibit with Western artists collaborating with Lao artists in many different media.
The following day, after breakfast at a western coffeehouse that could have been anywhere, the 6 of us Americans took a tuk-tuk (3-wheeled vehicle made from a motorcycle front and two benches with a roof on back) to a nearby waterfall. This is supposed to by the hottest time of the year as well as the driest (the rainy season starts in May), so we figured the waterfall would be a great way to cool off. As we approached however, the sky kept getting darker and darker, and when we finally hiked up to the waterfall the rain poured down in a terrific storm, leaving us drenched and shivering but laughing as we rode back and the rain stopped. The 6 of us had a nice dinner that night, and the next day Rachel and I set off on the slow boat to the Thai border.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Don't Blink: HCMC to Hanoi in a Week
Having arrived yesterday in Vientiane, Laos' sleepy, eerily quiet capital city, we're feeling even more aware of the bustle and buzz that defined the cities large and small that we visited in Viet Nam-- the noise of traffic and vendors and conversations, the swarms of people everywhere,the rush of scooters and bicycles and cars. Added to this the fact that we were moving from one place to another daily or every other day, and our time in Viet Nam takes on the quality of a movie or song played at high speed-- but a great movie, a favorite song, enjoyable even if there's not enough time to fully appreciate it.
We made our way from HCMC north to Hanoi on a hop on/hop off tourist bus, run by one of many identical companies with identical itineraries. We chose it because it was by far the easiest way to get from one place to another in the limited time we had-- using local transportation can easily double the amount of time it takes to get from place to place-- but the trade-off was that we never got even slightly off the tourist trail (which is much, much bigger in Vietnam than we had expected). But of course, even the most touristy places were new to us, and we really enjoyed seeing them.
Our first couple stops, where we spent all day (or night) on the bus and had only a couple hours to poke around, were nothing special. We enjoyed hanging out in the market in the highland town of Dalat-- it was Women's Day,and families were out in force, eating at the several dozen food stalls serving pho bo (beef noodle soup) or big bowls of unflavored steamed snails. We ate with a friendly, if dazed, hippy from New York who had spent the last month at the Rainbow Festival in Thailand, wandered around a bit, and fell into bed. The next day, we had a couple hours in the late afternoon on the beach in Nha Trang, where we gave in to persistent pestering from a woman selling lobsters and let her grill a small one for us-- tough and short on meat, no match for a New England lobster. (Which reminds me that baseball season is about to begin... hooray! Which reminds me that we'll be home soon... hooray again!)
From Nha Trang we suffered through an overnight bus ride dominated by a couple of obnoxious English and Irish guys who kept turning on the lights and talking loudly while everyone was sleeping, and putting their feet on our seats. But arriving in Hoi An, a beautiful, interesting little city with a UNESCO-preserved Old Town, pushed them quickly out of mind. We spent the morning wandering around the Old Town, where almost all of the buildings are painted sunflower-yellow and one ticket gains you entrance to a range of sweet little attractions: a museum in an old wooden house displaying ceramics from the area's long history of trade, a Chinese/Japanese house with exquisite furniture lived in currently by the 7th generation of the same family, a Cantonese temple where a pig offering had just been put at the altar, a Japanese covered bridge. The city is also famous for its silk, with both lantern- making and tailoring as specialties of the residents. (How could Mia and I NOT have had silk dresses made to order, for a price that would have bought two hot dogs at Fenway Park?) That afternoon, we chartered a car out to My Son, an area of ruins from the Cham kingdom, which ruled much of Viet Nam from the 2nd to 16th centuries. One of the most striking aspects of the site was the fact that a number of important, well-preserved buildings had been destroyed by American bombs during the war-- they could survive for 1500 years, and then be ruined just like that. Of the buildings that were still somewhat intact,my favorite part was the Hindu carvings and sculptures that decorated them-- elephants, coconut trees, and quite prominent giant phalluses.
We had to say goodbye to Mia the next morning, so she could continue north in time to catch her flight back to Denmark. But Erik and I spent the day-- a poignant and in some ways terrible one-- at Son My, a couple hours outside Hoi An and the site of the My Lai massacre. The visit started with a video, which described life in the region before and during the war, then went into the horrific details of the massacre itself. Son My (a village of four hamlets, only one of which was actually called My Lai, but which the American soldiers referred to as My Lai 1-4) was believed, on scanty to no evidence, to be a hot-bed of anti-American activity. It seems more accurate that the people left behind in the village (the men always had to fight, on one side or the other), while probably not fans of the Americans who were bombing their land and killing their compatriots, were only actively engaged in trying to survive through the war. Regardless, the American in charge of the area, Lt. Calley, gave his troops the order to kill and destroy everyone and everything. Reduced to numbers, this came down to 504 people murdered, including 56 infants under 5 months old, 117 children, 182 women (including 17 pregnant women), and 60 men over 60 years old.
Much of this we knew, and were, in some way, prepared for. What got me more deeply about the site was all that we didn't know. The video, for example, focused on two American heroes I had never heard of, officers named Thompson and Colburn. Thompson was the commander of a helicopter who saw soldiers killing villagers and burning the village. He tried to get them to stop, and they told him to mind his own business. He got in his helicopter, and as he flew over the area saw a group of 10 villagers running away from a couple soldiers who were trying to kill them. He landed and ordered his gunner, Colburn, to point his gun at the soldiers, opening fire if they approached the villagers. Then he loaded the villagers onto the chopper and brought them a few miles to safety. These two men saved 10 of the 18 people from Son My who survived that day. What happened to Thompson? He was excoriated by the military, sent hate mail by the public (while Calley was lauded and, although sentenced to life in prison for his actions at My Lai, was pardoned by Nixon and never served any time), and became so depressed that he drank himself to death. There was one beautiful scene in the video, though, where Thompson and Colburn returned to Son My for a ceremony at the site, and were then reunited with the people they had saved, everyone too choked up to speak. The site itself was also very powerful. Next to the museum and a large statue were the remains of one of the hamlets: the foundations of burned houses, with a list of the family members who had been killed; bunkers where families had tried to hide before soldiers threw grenades into them; the ditch where 75 people had been systematically shot, after all the women and girls had been raped. The woman who guided us around this area had lost her grandfather and two uncles in the massacre. As we walked away from the ditch, she pointed at an old woman who was squatting cutting grass right near it, and told us that the woman was one of the 18 survivors-- she had lived because she was hidden under the corpses in the ditch, by some luck not having been shot.
The stories and images from Son My did not, of course, leave our minds during the rest of our time in Viet Nam, and never will. But one of the surprises for us in Viet Nam was how non-dominant the American War is in terms of the culture and longer history of the country. I think "Vietnam" has come to have such specific and multi-layered meanings for us at home-- a sort of code word for so many things-- that somehow I hadn't quite realized that it was also a real, living place. But it is-- I'd say one of the most vibrant, energized places we've been. The proud earlier history was on display at our next stop, the city of Hue, which used to be the governing seat of the emperors. There is a walled citadel enclosing the well-preserved (formerly) forbidden city of palaces and pagodas, and along the river, for many kilometers, are spread the emperors' tombs. We took a slow, quiet boat trip one day, which went from tomb to tomb (only one of which we paid to get into, having heard that they are all quite similar) and also to a beautiful monastery, which had been the home of one of the monks who burned himself in the street in opposition to President Diem in the early 1960s. We also tried another fabulous new food (I'd have to vote for Vietnamese as my favorite cuisine of the trip so far), rice-based globby things with shrimp steamed inside banana leaves, one type soft and almost drinkable, the other type chewy like Turkish delight.
From Hue, we headed to our last stop in Viet Nam, Hanoi. We were a bit worn out by this point and didn't make it to everything on our list, but still got a good taste of the city. It's smaller and less modern feeling than HCMC, but feels even more ridiculously busy traffic-wise, maybe because the streets are narrower and the sidewalks have even less (as in, no) walking space, they're so filled with soup stands and scooters and people drinking coffee. We spent a morning at the (imho) ridiculously overwrought mausoleum for Ho Chi Minh, a place where officious guards make you stand in line 2 by 2 and bare shoulders are not allowed (it felt like Vatican City, a place I find similarly uncomfortable and kind of gross). It was interesting to watch the many Vietnamese people visiting, as it did seem like a pilgrimage for many of them, with children in their best dresses and old people supported by a child on either side. The feeling of farce won out, though, when a soldier standing guard at the exit to the tomb room grabbed my butt as I walked out. (We furiously reported the incident to the office, where people said disciplinary measures would be taken, but I have my doubts....)
On the nicer side, Hanoi has a lovely lake right in its center, offering needed respite from the noise all around. The opera house, in bright yellow with gleaming white columns, was beautiful, and it was fun to see crowds of brides and grooms and their families gathered on the steps, trying not to get in each other's photos. There was a cool ethnology museum, with displays about several of the different ethno-linguistic groups in Viet Nam, as well as a really interesting room reflecting on the difficulties and tragedies of the 11 years, 1975-86, the country spent under total state control. We ate more awesome food at one of a few restaurants where former street and very poor children are trained to be chefs and waiters, and later placed in full-time jobs in the business. My favorite thing, though, was probably the water puppet show we spent an hour watching. Hidden behind a set, puppeteers hip-deep in water sent colorful, animated wooden puppets out to process, dance, and play in the water stage. In one number, a lone stilt-legged bird stalked through the water, followed by a meditative lute-playing farmer riding a water buffalo; in another, huge fish jumped and flopped around while a fisherman jumped up and down, haplessly trying to catch them before putting his basket over another fisherman's head instead; in another,fire-breathing dragons took center stage. The show was peaceful and chaotic, traditional and wildly energetic; just, in our little experience, like Viet Nam.
We made our way from HCMC north to Hanoi on a hop on/hop off tourist bus, run by one of many identical companies with identical itineraries. We chose it because it was by far the easiest way to get from one place to another in the limited time we had-- using local transportation can easily double the amount of time it takes to get from place to place-- but the trade-off was that we never got even slightly off the tourist trail (which is much, much bigger in Vietnam than we had expected). But of course, even the most touristy places were new to us, and we really enjoyed seeing them.
Our first couple stops, where we spent all day (or night) on the bus and had only a couple hours to poke around, were nothing special. We enjoyed hanging out in the market in the highland town of Dalat-- it was Women's Day,and families were out in force, eating at the several dozen food stalls serving pho bo (beef noodle soup) or big bowls of unflavored steamed snails. We ate with a friendly, if dazed, hippy from New York who had spent the last month at the Rainbow Festival in Thailand, wandered around a bit, and fell into bed. The next day, we had a couple hours in the late afternoon on the beach in Nha Trang, where we gave in to persistent pestering from a woman selling lobsters and let her grill a small one for us-- tough and short on meat, no match for a New England lobster. (Which reminds me that baseball season is about to begin... hooray! Which reminds me that we'll be home soon... hooray again!)
From Nha Trang we suffered through an overnight bus ride dominated by a couple of obnoxious English and Irish guys who kept turning on the lights and talking loudly while everyone was sleeping, and putting their feet on our seats. But arriving in Hoi An, a beautiful, interesting little city with a UNESCO-preserved Old Town, pushed them quickly out of mind. We spent the morning wandering around the Old Town, where almost all of the buildings are painted sunflower-yellow and one ticket gains you entrance to a range of sweet little attractions: a museum in an old wooden house displaying ceramics from the area's long history of trade, a Chinese/Japanese house with exquisite furniture lived in currently by the 7th generation of the same family, a Cantonese temple where a pig offering had just been put at the altar, a Japanese covered bridge. The city is also famous for its silk, with both lantern- making and tailoring as specialties of the residents. (How could Mia and I NOT have had silk dresses made to order, for a price that would have bought two hot dogs at Fenway Park?) That afternoon, we chartered a car out to My Son, an area of ruins from the Cham kingdom, which ruled much of Viet Nam from the 2nd to 16th centuries. One of the most striking aspects of the site was the fact that a number of important, well-preserved buildings had been destroyed by American bombs during the war-- they could survive for 1500 years, and then be ruined just like that. Of the buildings that were still somewhat intact,my favorite part was the Hindu carvings and sculptures that decorated them-- elephants, coconut trees, and quite prominent giant phalluses.
We had to say goodbye to Mia the next morning, so she could continue north in time to catch her flight back to Denmark. But Erik and I spent the day-- a poignant and in some ways terrible one-- at Son My, a couple hours outside Hoi An and the site of the My Lai massacre. The visit started with a video, which described life in the region before and during the war, then went into the horrific details of the massacre itself. Son My (a village of four hamlets, only one of which was actually called My Lai, but which the American soldiers referred to as My Lai 1-4) was believed, on scanty to no evidence, to be a hot-bed of anti-American activity. It seems more accurate that the people left behind in the village (the men always had to fight, on one side or the other), while probably not fans of the Americans who were bombing their land and killing their compatriots, were only actively engaged in trying to survive through the war. Regardless, the American in charge of the area, Lt. Calley, gave his troops the order to kill and destroy everyone and everything. Reduced to numbers, this came down to 504 people murdered, including 56 infants under 5 months old, 117 children, 182 women (including 17 pregnant women), and 60 men over 60 years old.
Much of this we knew, and were, in some way, prepared for. What got me more deeply about the site was all that we didn't know. The video, for example, focused on two American heroes I had never heard of, officers named Thompson and Colburn. Thompson was the commander of a helicopter who saw soldiers killing villagers and burning the village. He tried to get them to stop, and they told him to mind his own business. He got in his helicopter, and as he flew over the area saw a group of 10 villagers running away from a couple soldiers who were trying to kill them. He landed and ordered his gunner, Colburn, to point his gun at the soldiers, opening fire if they approached the villagers. Then he loaded the villagers onto the chopper and brought them a few miles to safety. These two men saved 10 of the 18 people from Son My who survived that day. What happened to Thompson? He was excoriated by the military, sent hate mail by the public (while Calley was lauded and, although sentenced to life in prison for his actions at My Lai, was pardoned by Nixon and never served any time), and became so depressed that he drank himself to death. There was one beautiful scene in the video, though, where Thompson and Colburn returned to Son My for a ceremony at the site, and were then reunited with the people they had saved, everyone too choked up to speak. The site itself was also very powerful. Next to the museum and a large statue were the remains of one of the hamlets: the foundations of burned houses, with a list of the family members who had been killed; bunkers where families had tried to hide before soldiers threw grenades into them; the ditch where 75 people had been systematically shot, after all the women and girls had been raped. The woman who guided us around this area had lost her grandfather and two uncles in the massacre. As we walked away from the ditch, she pointed at an old woman who was squatting cutting grass right near it, and told us that the woman was one of the 18 survivors-- she had lived because she was hidden under the corpses in the ditch, by some luck not having been shot.
The stories and images from Son My did not, of course, leave our minds during the rest of our time in Viet Nam, and never will. But one of the surprises for us in Viet Nam was how non-dominant the American War is in terms of the culture and longer history of the country. I think "Vietnam" has come to have such specific and multi-layered meanings for us at home-- a sort of code word for so many things-- that somehow I hadn't quite realized that it was also a real, living place. But it is-- I'd say one of the most vibrant, energized places we've been. The proud earlier history was on display at our next stop, the city of Hue, which used to be the governing seat of the emperors. There is a walled citadel enclosing the well-preserved (formerly) forbidden city of palaces and pagodas, and along the river, for many kilometers, are spread the emperors' tombs. We took a slow, quiet boat trip one day, which went from tomb to tomb (only one of which we paid to get into, having heard that they are all quite similar) and also to a beautiful monastery, which had been the home of one of the monks who burned himself in the street in opposition to President Diem in the early 1960s. We also tried another fabulous new food (I'd have to vote for Vietnamese as my favorite cuisine of the trip so far), rice-based globby things with shrimp steamed inside banana leaves, one type soft and almost drinkable, the other type chewy like Turkish delight.
From Hue, we headed to our last stop in Viet Nam, Hanoi. We were a bit worn out by this point and didn't make it to everything on our list, but still got a good taste of the city. It's smaller and less modern feeling than HCMC, but feels even more ridiculously busy traffic-wise, maybe because the streets are narrower and the sidewalks have even less (as in, no) walking space, they're so filled with soup stands and scooters and people drinking coffee. We spent a morning at the (imho) ridiculously overwrought mausoleum for Ho Chi Minh, a place where officious guards make you stand in line 2 by 2 and bare shoulders are not allowed (it felt like Vatican City, a place I find similarly uncomfortable and kind of gross). It was interesting to watch the many Vietnamese people visiting, as it did seem like a pilgrimage for many of them, with children in their best dresses and old people supported by a child on either side. The feeling of farce won out, though, when a soldier standing guard at the exit to the tomb room grabbed my butt as I walked out. (We furiously reported the incident to the office, where people said disciplinary measures would be taken, but I have my doubts....)
On the nicer side, Hanoi has a lovely lake right in its center, offering needed respite from the noise all around. The opera house, in bright yellow with gleaming white columns, was beautiful, and it was fun to see crowds of brides and grooms and their families gathered on the steps, trying not to get in each other's photos. There was a cool ethnology museum, with displays about several of the different ethno-linguistic groups in Viet Nam, as well as a really interesting room reflecting on the difficulties and tragedies of the 11 years, 1975-86, the country spent under total state control. We ate more awesome food at one of a few restaurants where former street and very poor children are trained to be chefs and waiters, and later placed in full-time jobs in the business. My favorite thing, though, was probably the water puppet show we spent an hour watching. Hidden behind a set, puppeteers hip-deep in water sent colorful, animated wooden puppets out to process, dance, and play in the water stage. In one number, a lone stilt-legged bird stalked through the water, followed by a meditative lute-playing farmer riding a water buffalo; in another, huge fish jumped and flopped around while a fisherman jumped up and down, haplessly trying to catch them before putting his basket over another fisherman's head instead; in another,fire-breathing dragons took center stage. The show was peaceful and chaotic, traditional and wildly energetic; just, in our little experience, like Viet Nam.
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh (City)
The chorus to Vietnam's rousing national anthem is "Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh (repeat)", and our first stop in Vietnam was Saigon, renamed Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) in 1975 in honor of "Uncle Ho". We didn't have much of a mental image of Vietnam apart from movie and photo images of the war. It turns out Vietnam isn't that small (bigger land area than Italy), and certainly doesn't have a small population: 80 million, more than double that of 1975. HCMC is hot and fairly humid, but the land around is dry and the grass brown--not the tropical green vegetation we pictured (the image of the whole country as jungle from Vietnam movies).
Vietnam is the first country we've been in since Ghana where traffic drives on the right-hand side, and also the first country (not counting Singapore) back in the Northern Hemisphere since Ghana. Vietmam is the first "socialist" country we've ever been in, but you'd hardly know it from the feel of the chic streets in downtown HCMC--it feels nothing like our image of a drab, colorless, and consumer goods-short Soviet Socialism. Some of the evidence for something called socialism still existing here includes propaganda billboards that look like they could have come from Moscow in the 1920s or a Mexican mural in the 1950s, featuring smiling workers and peasants standing shoulder to shoulder, a dove flying overhead and the symbol of the atom floating nearby.
Today socialist Vietnam subsidizes 40% of the cost of gasoline, but most people aren't putting it in cars, as it also imposes a whopping 200% tax (even more than Denmark's 180%!)on every car purchased. Subsequently, there are lots and lots of scooters: 4 million of them (1 for every 2 people) in HCMC alone. All of these scooters make for an interesting traffic experience: despite being chaotic, the traffic is actually easier to walk through than a place like Cairo (now always the point of reference in matters like these), since the scooters can maneuver around us as we slowly cross the street. Riding in a car is a little more nerve-wracking, as the sides of the roads are always taken up by bikes and scooters, and cars are continually rushing to pass the truck or bus ahead of them so that it often ends up looking like a game of chicken on narrow 2 lane roads but somehow all works out without too many accidents.
We've also observed that scooters can be transformed into pretty much anything: places for people to sleep on top of as they balance against a wall, as well as a place for young couples to sit together in the park at night (who we guess are otherwise living with their parents). We did have one negative scooter encounter when one ran a red light and hit me on the arm; fortunately I was unhurt, but the collision was enough to knock him off his scooter.
Women riding scooters are clothed in gloves, face masks (which seem like more of a cultural thing than health, as the air quality doesn't seem as bad here as others), and hats. Like many other places, there's very little room available to walk on the sidewalks- mostly taken up by parked scooters, but also all kinds of food and other vendors. Pirate copies of books (the first time we've seen these!) are hawked everywhere- always the same Lonely Planet guides, best sellers and countercultural titles.
On our first day in HCMC we got a massage at the Vietnamese Traditional Medicine Institute from blind masseuses. From the similarity of their appearance with photos we saw in museums, we wondered if they were blind from Agent Orange exposure. Walking around that night we passed the local version of Times Square--huge ads for cell phones and electronic companies in brilliantly lit screens. Many of the buildings look new, with colorful and funky-designed facades.
The next day we took a tour bus to the Cu Chi Tunnels 70 km northwest of HCMC, used by Viet Cong guerillas and the local population from the war against the French and then the Americans. 16,000 Vietnamese people lived in the tunnels in those years, and 12,000 died. On the way there we passed rice fields (Vietnam is the second largest exporter of rice in the world, after Thailand), rubber tree plantations, and water buffalo. We didn't expect all the tourists who were there visiting the tunnels, but it was still an interesting site. We watched a Vietnamese propaganda film from 1967 lauding Cu Chi locals as "American killer heroes" and referring to American soldiers as "devils". We saw large craters from B-52 bombs, and various bamboo traps used against the Americans. There was a shooting range where you can fire automatic weapons--we passed. One stretch of tunnel was widened so that larger Westerners can crawl through it. While it was less than 5 minutes, the experience was intense: much of it completely dark and very small. Hard to imagine what crawling through it would feel like with the knowledge that others are there trying to kill you.
In the afternoon we visited the Reunification Palace. Rebuilt on the site of the French Palace, which was bombed by counter-Diem (the U.S. puppet president of South Vietnam) forces in 1960, the Palace housed the South Vietnamese government until North Vietnamese tanks rolled through the gates and "liberated" the city in 1975. We had a nice guided tour, and saw some of the signs of the corrupt and hated Diem's pleasure-rooms, including a gambling room with psychedelic portrait of Jim Morrison, a red plush cinema, and the top floor which was designed as a meditation space but converted by Diem in a discotheque.
That night our Danish friend Mia (who we'd met in Egypt) arrived, and we went out to dinner at a chaotic restaurant where your order is prepared by different chefs at a number of specialized food stands. The next day the three of us went to the War Remnants Museum, a great collection of intense photos and artifacts. It featured exhibits on the effects of Agent Orange on mainly the Vietnamese population but also on American soldiers, the massacres of My Lai and (Phan Huong?), the latter led by Senator Bob Kerrey, and a large and moving exhibit on war photographers and their role. We felt like every American should see this museum and these photos, and that it only cemented the outrage at America's needless war.
That afternoon we visited the Jade Pagoda, which was a baroque combination of Buddhist, Hindu and Catholic images and offerings. For lunch we had terrific shrimp pancakes wrapped in greens and dipped in fish sauce (see photos), while for dinner we splurged and ate at a nicer French restaurant. The next morning we boarded our bus for the journey to Dalat.
.
Vietnam is the first country we've been in since Ghana where traffic drives on the right-hand side, and also the first country (not counting Singapore) back in the Northern Hemisphere since Ghana. Vietmam is the first "socialist" country we've ever been in, but you'd hardly know it from the feel of the chic streets in downtown HCMC--it feels nothing like our image of a drab, colorless, and consumer goods-short Soviet Socialism. Some of the evidence for something called socialism still existing here includes propaganda billboards that look like they could have come from Moscow in the 1920s or a Mexican mural in the 1950s, featuring smiling workers and peasants standing shoulder to shoulder, a dove flying overhead and the symbol of the atom floating nearby.
Today socialist Vietnam subsidizes 40% of the cost of gasoline, but most people aren't putting it in cars, as it also imposes a whopping 200% tax (even more than Denmark's 180%!)on every car purchased. Subsequently, there are lots and lots of scooters: 4 million of them (1 for every 2 people) in HCMC alone. All of these scooters make for an interesting traffic experience: despite being chaotic, the traffic is actually easier to walk through than a place like Cairo (now always the point of reference in matters like these), since the scooters can maneuver around us as we slowly cross the street. Riding in a car is a little more nerve-wracking, as the sides of the roads are always taken up by bikes and scooters, and cars are continually rushing to pass the truck or bus ahead of them so that it often ends up looking like a game of chicken on narrow 2 lane roads but somehow all works out without too many accidents.
We've also observed that scooters can be transformed into pretty much anything: places for people to sleep on top of as they balance against a wall, as well as a place for young couples to sit together in the park at night (who we guess are otherwise living with their parents). We did have one negative scooter encounter when one ran a red light and hit me on the arm; fortunately I was unhurt, but the collision was enough to knock him off his scooter.
Women riding scooters are clothed in gloves, face masks (which seem like more of a cultural thing than health, as the air quality doesn't seem as bad here as others), and hats. Like many other places, there's very little room available to walk on the sidewalks- mostly taken up by parked scooters, but also all kinds of food and other vendors. Pirate copies of books (the first time we've seen these!) are hawked everywhere- always the same Lonely Planet guides, best sellers and countercultural titles.
On our first day in HCMC we got a massage at the Vietnamese Traditional Medicine Institute from blind masseuses. From the similarity of their appearance with photos we saw in museums, we wondered if they were blind from Agent Orange exposure. Walking around that night we passed the local version of Times Square--huge ads for cell phones and electronic companies in brilliantly lit screens. Many of the buildings look new, with colorful and funky-designed facades.
The next day we took a tour bus to the Cu Chi Tunnels 70 km northwest of HCMC, used by Viet Cong guerillas and the local population from the war against the French and then the Americans. 16,000 Vietnamese people lived in the tunnels in those years, and 12,000 died. On the way there we passed rice fields (Vietnam is the second largest exporter of rice in the world, after Thailand), rubber tree plantations, and water buffalo. We didn't expect all the tourists who were there visiting the tunnels, but it was still an interesting site. We watched a Vietnamese propaganda film from 1967 lauding Cu Chi locals as "American killer heroes" and referring to American soldiers as "devils". We saw large craters from B-52 bombs, and various bamboo traps used against the Americans. There was a shooting range where you can fire automatic weapons--we passed. One stretch of tunnel was widened so that larger Westerners can crawl through it. While it was less than 5 minutes, the experience was intense: much of it completely dark and very small. Hard to imagine what crawling through it would feel like with the knowledge that others are there trying to kill you.
In the afternoon we visited the Reunification Palace. Rebuilt on the site of the French Palace, which was bombed by counter-Diem (the U.S. puppet president of South Vietnam) forces in 1960, the Palace housed the South Vietnamese government until North Vietnamese tanks rolled through the gates and "liberated" the city in 1975. We had a nice guided tour, and saw some of the signs of the corrupt and hated Diem's pleasure-rooms, including a gambling room with psychedelic portrait of Jim Morrison, a red plush cinema, and the top floor which was designed as a meditation space but converted by Diem in a discotheque.
That night our Danish friend Mia (who we'd met in Egypt) arrived, and we went out to dinner at a chaotic restaurant where your order is prepared by different chefs at a number of specialized food stands. The next day the three of us went to the War Remnants Museum, a great collection of intense photos and artifacts. It featured exhibits on the effects of Agent Orange on mainly the Vietnamese population but also on American soldiers, the massacres of My Lai and (Phan Huong?), the latter led by Senator Bob Kerrey, and a large and moving exhibit on war photographers and their role. We felt like every American should see this museum and these photos, and that it only cemented the outrage at America's needless war.
That afternoon we visited the Jade Pagoda, which was a baroque combination of Buddhist, Hindu and Catholic images and offerings. For lunch we had terrific shrimp pancakes wrapped in greens and dipped in fish sauce (see photos), while for dinner we splurged and ate at a nicer French restaurant. The next morning we boarded our bus for the journey to Dalat.
.
Monday, March 05, 2007
Hungry Singapore Nights
Or night, more accurately. Before coming to Singapore, we had only two associations with that teeny-tiny but totally packed city-state: the hyper-strict society that caned an American 15 or so years ago, and the name on the tag of lots of cheap manufactures. In our 20-hour stint there, we saw some hints of those, but also experienced a bright and vibrant global city.
We met up with our Irish friend Mark, from Bali, at a hostel in Singapore's Little India neighborhood. Walking in around 5, we couldn't see what the name was all about, but when we left the hostel at 7 to see the town, the area around us had been transformed into a different world. The narrow streets were packed to the gills with men (literally, only men) from southern India-- eating from stands serving Indian pancakes and chickpeas, standing in groups in the street talking, praying in the temple, sitting at plastic tables drinking tall beers-- and Mark, who had come from India before going to Indonesia, said it felt like a piece of Mumbai. We wriggled our way through the crowd to the subway, which, in itself, was pretty technologically cool. (The single-use tickets are sturdy plastic, which open the gate via a scanner, and come with a refundable deposit to ensure recycling, and the announcements of stations are impeccably audible.) The reputation for order and strictness was also in evidence: there was a looping video showing a simulation of what a Singapore subway bombing would be like and giving explicit instructions to passengers on how to avoid such situations; more lightly, there were signs at all the entrances saying "No Durians". (Tangent #2: A durian is one of the weirder tropical fruits we've eaten. It's the size of a coconut, but covered with short, sharp spikes; you really wouldn't want one to fall out of a tree on you. It smells like a mango slowly rotting in the midst of a garbage heap, a scent which not only carries across a room but also leaves its trace on anything it touches-- hence the subway ban. The edible part is a thin layer of slimy coating on the mouse-sized seeds. We also tried some rather more easily enjoyed fruits lately: rambutans, which are like lychees; mangosteens, which have a purple skin and almond-like seeds shaped in a flower; and salak, with a snakeskin-pattern rind and a pear-apple taste.) Anyway, point was, we got on the subway in India, and got off, it seemed, in China.
Ethnic Chinese make up almost 77% of the population of Singapore, so the Chinatown there is not the residential center for the community, as it has traditionally been in American Chinatowns. However, it definitely felt like the cultural and culinary center for Chinese in the city. From the subway, we came out onto a market street lined with tent-roofed stores selling red-tasseled lanterns, gaudy pink stuffed animals, and multi-colored sequined bags. The next street (the one we had been eagerly awaiting) was lined entirely with food stalls. We walked up and down the row, perusing our myriad options; then we dove in and feasted. Two choices had been recommended to us as Singapore specialties, a delicious barbecued stingray and rather slimy but generously filled oyster omelette. In addition, we had bitter greens sauteed with chilis, steamed buns filled, respectively, with pork, lotus paste, and red bean paste, and a wonton soup that was by far the most delicious I have ever tasted-- a rich, sour/bitter/spicy/sweet broth with thick, chewy, flavorful dumplings. Mmmm. We washed it down with weak but suitably-beerlike Tiger Ale, gaped at the flourescent parade celebrating the last night of Chinese New Year, then waddled our way back to Little India and went to bed.
In the morning, we said goodbye to Mark (but with the happy possibility of meeting agin in Thailand or Cambodia), then headed back to the airport for our third country in two days. Singapore was not a stop we had planned, but it was a thoroughly delicious one.
We met up with our Irish friend Mark, from Bali, at a hostel in Singapore's Little India neighborhood. Walking in around 5, we couldn't see what the name was all about, but when we left the hostel at 7 to see the town, the area around us had been transformed into a different world. The narrow streets were packed to the gills with men (literally, only men) from southern India-- eating from stands serving Indian pancakes and chickpeas, standing in groups in the street talking, praying in the temple, sitting at plastic tables drinking tall beers-- and Mark, who had come from India before going to Indonesia, said it felt like a piece of Mumbai. We wriggled our way through the crowd to the subway, which, in itself, was pretty technologically cool. (The single-use tickets are sturdy plastic, which open the gate via a scanner, and come with a refundable deposit to ensure recycling, and the announcements of stations are impeccably audible.) The reputation for order and strictness was also in evidence: there was a looping video showing a simulation of what a Singapore subway bombing would be like and giving explicit instructions to passengers on how to avoid such situations; more lightly, there were signs at all the entrances saying "No Durians". (Tangent #2: A durian is one of the weirder tropical fruits we've eaten. It's the size of a coconut, but covered with short, sharp spikes; you really wouldn't want one to fall out of a tree on you. It smells like a mango slowly rotting in the midst of a garbage heap, a scent which not only carries across a room but also leaves its trace on anything it touches-- hence the subway ban. The edible part is a thin layer of slimy coating on the mouse-sized seeds. We also tried some rather more easily enjoyed fruits lately: rambutans, which are like lychees; mangosteens, which have a purple skin and almond-like seeds shaped in a flower; and salak, with a snakeskin-pattern rind and a pear-apple taste.) Anyway, point was, we got on the subway in India, and got off, it seemed, in China.
Ethnic Chinese make up almost 77% of the population of Singapore, so the Chinatown there is not the residential center for the community, as it has traditionally been in American Chinatowns. However, it definitely felt like the cultural and culinary center for Chinese in the city. From the subway, we came out onto a market street lined with tent-roofed stores selling red-tasseled lanterns, gaudy pink stuffed animals, and multi-colored sequined bags. The next street (the one we had been eagerly awaiting) was lined entirely with food stalls. We walked up and down the row, perusing our myriad options; then we dove in and feasted. Two choices had been recommended to us as Singapore specialties, a delicious barbecued stingray and rather slimy but generously filled oyster omelette. In addition, we had bitter greens sauteed with chilis, steamed buns filled, respectively, with pork, lotus paste, and red bean paste, and a wonton soup that was by far the most delicious I have ever tasted-- a rich, sour/bitter/spicy/sweet broth with thick, chewy, flavorful dumplings. Mmmm. We washed it down with weak but suitably-beerlike Tiger Ale, gaped at the flourescent parade celebrating the last night of Chinese New Year, then waddled our way back to Little India and went to bed.
In the morning, we said goodbye to Mark (but with the happy possibility of meeting agin in Thailand or Cambodia), then headed back to the airport for our third country in two days. Singapore was not a stop we had planned, but it was a thoroughly delicious one.
Friday, March 02, 2007
Beautiful Bali: Beach/Volcano/Beach
We left Ubud for Lovina, a small town on the beach in the north of Bali. The bus went up and up and up volcanic mountains (the landscape was a little similar to southern Mexico), and then down to the coast. In Lovina, we stayed at Gede's Homestay (which I think just means that the owners live in the hotel), a basic beachfront place. The super-frienldy owner Gede was a local fisherman for 30 years, and has owned the homestay for 15, in which time he's learned to speak English (a process which we've heard so many people are able to do, still seems pretty impressive to us to just pick up a language from tourists). Because of the volcanic rock, Lovina has a black sand beach, the first of those we've ever seen. It also has a beautiful horizon, one that seems very flat and seems to spread out continually with beautiful low lines of clouds.
In addition to our stomachs having to readjust to developing world bacteria in Bali, another readjustment we've had to make after our South Africa to New Zealand developed world hiatus is our status as walking ATMs in the eyes of the local population. Everyone is trying to sell us something, and although people usually leave us alone after we say no a few times, a few are annoyingly persistent. At the same time that it's an unpleasant interaction/feeling for us, we also recognize that tourism is how people here live (again like other places we've seen, outside of agriculture there seem to be no jobs besides tourism). And targeting tourists as a means to make a living in Bali seems to have taken on a mood of desperation, as tourism has declined significantly since the bombings (one Australian woman we met said that there were more tourists here when she came 25 years ago than there are today). One sign in a hotel window read "Don't Let the Terrorist Win: Come Back to Bali" while a cruder t-shirt version read "Fuck Terrorist."
In Lovina we met Michael from Germany and Mark from Ireland, and the four of us signed up to go fishing. We set out with a fisherman (Gede's nephew) at 6:30 am in a narrow wooden boat with supports on each side. As we headed out to sea, we marveled at the beautiful mountains of Bali behind us. On the water we saw some amazing small flying fish, which looked a little like humming birds, that would zip along just above the water for what seemed like really long distances. The process of fishing consisted of the boat going to different spots marked with floating stations, throwing out jugs with a line and hook attached, and also trawling a line wrapped around a spool. While we never had a bite on the trawling lines, we caught one smaller grouper and one large Mahi-Mahi (see photos) on the jugs. Another highlight of the outing was seeing dozens of dolphins swimming and jumping nearby, including a few who swam right beside the boat for a short time. We returned about 11 am, and later (thankfully) that afternoon the skies opened up in a huge rainstorm, which we would experience many more times in Bali. That night we enjoyed the Mahi Mahi, which Gede had barbecued for us.
We left Lovina with Mark, heading towards the Gunang Batur volcano. We were dropped at the town of Penelokan, at the top of the ridge, and after walking around a little and getting hassled a lot, we spotted another couple who had just arrived--Steven and Ana from Holland--and all went together to a hotel in a village at the bottom of the valley. After more hassle from the hotel trying to sell us their exorbitantly-priced volcano hike, we followed the guidebook's suggestion and walked to the official hiking office to book for the next day. As the rain came that afternoon, we sat around the hotel talking and then went to bed early in preparation for our hike the next day.
Like Mt. Sinai in Egypt, the volcano hike is timed so that you can see the sunrise, which means that the 5 of us had to start at the unfortunate time of 4 am (the leftover bumper bar from N.Z. came in handy). We followed a guide up the side of the volcano, some of which was level and relatively easy but some very rocky and steep, which was difficult to navigate given that we were half asleep and didn't have enough flashlights to go around. But we made it to the main observation point and sat there with a few other groups of tourists, enjoying the spectacular view of the island of Lombok in the distance and the taller volcano Gunang Anung across from us despite that fact that the sunrise was obscured by a few clouds. We then hiked a little further to the very top, where except for a small store and owner we were all alone with our guide, looking down into the steaming crater, out over the black lava flow and over much of Bali. At the top, our guide cooked us eggs and bananas in the steam from the volcano. We then started our descent, part of which included "skiing" in stretches of black sand. We felt great arriving back at the hiking office around 10 am. It was an awesome experience and amazingly beautiful--see all the photos we took!
After a second breakfast at the hotel, we packed up and the 5 of us headed to the beach at Pading Bai, an even smaller town than Lovina in the south of Bali, and the ferry port for Lombok. Rachel and I hadn't planned to come here, but both Mark and Steven and Ana had been and enjoyed it, so we decided to check it out. Mark and Steven and Ana both had planned to move on the next day, but luckily for us they decided to stick around, and the 5 of us had a great time lounging on the beach but mostly eating, drinking, and talking in the local restaurants. They're all really interesting and friendly people; Irish Mark from is a chef, and Dutch Steven and Ana (via Portugal) are an architect and artist. Steven spent time in Indonesia before and speaks Indonesian, which also came in handy a few times. Although there were a few incredibly pushy massage women, overall Pading Bai was much more low key and low hassle than Lovina. We stayed in a nice garden bungalow (although unfortunately we found evidence of a rodent staying with us a well, who apparently stole one of my soaps). Some mornings were sunny and most afternoons were rainy, including one terrific storm where we sat in the beachfront restaurant drinking beer and jumping at the booming thunder.
Overall we stayed 4 nights in Pading Bai, with Steven and Ana staying 3 and Mark 4 also. It was great to hang out with people and have a very slow pace for awhile. The most exciting thing we saw in Pading Bai were beautiful processions of people to a local Hindu temple, with people dressed in white tops and multi-colored sarongs. We left Pading Bai on Saturday, March 3, and came to Ubud, where I'm writing this blog, for a little end-of-Bali eating and shopping. On our van ride here was a couple from Ostrava, Czech Republic! (Where one of the Partnership churches is located, and where Rachel attended the conference in 2001 and we both visited in 2002.) For lunch today in Ubud we took Mark's suggestion for a Babi Guling (suckling pig) restaurant--it was incredible! (unfortunately no photos) We saw a whole roasted pig being carried into the kitchen. Really juicy, flavorful meat, pork rind, blood sausage, and a few other tasty pieces we couldn't name but loved eating. From here we'll catch a van to the airport tomorrow morning, then on for one night in Singapore tomorrow night (where we plan to meet up with Mark), and then to Vietnam!
In addition to our stomachs having to readjust to developing world bacteria in Bali, another readjustment we've had to make after our South Africa to New Zealand developed world hiatus is our status as walking ATMs in the eyes of the local population. Everyone is trying to sell us something, and although people usually leave us alone after we say no a few times, a few are annoyingly persistent. At the same time that it's an unpleasant interaction/feeling for us, we also recognize that tourism is how people here live (again like other places we've seen, outside of agriculture there seem to be no jobs besides tourism). And targeting tourists as a means to make a living in Bali seems to have taken on a mood of desperation, as tourism has declined significantly since the bombings (one Australian woman we met said that there were more tourists here when she came 25 years ago than there are today). One sign in a hotel window read "Don't Let the Terrorist Win: Come Back to Bali" while a cruder t-shirt version read "Fuck Terrorist."
In Lovina we met Michael from Germany and Mark from Ireland, and the four of us signed up to go fishing. We set out with a fisherman (Gede's nephew) at 6:30 am in a narrow wooden boat with supports on each side. As we headed out to sea, we marveled at the beautiful mountains of Bali behind us. On the water we saw some amazing small flying fish, which looked a little like humming birds, that would zip along just above the water for what seemed like really long distances. The process of fishing consisted of the boat going to different spots marked with floating stations, throwing out jugs with a line and hook attached, and also trawling a line wrapped around a spool. While we never had a bite on the trawling lines, we caught one smaller grouper and one large Mahi-Mahi (see photos) on the jugs. Another highlight of the outing was seeing dozens of dolphins swimming and jumping nearby, including a few who swam right beside the boat for a short time. We returned about 11 am, and later (thankfully) that afternoon the skies opened up in a huge rainstorm, which we would experience many more times in Bali. That night we enjoyed the Mahi Mahi, which Gede had barbecued for us.
We left Lovina with Mark, heading towards the Gunang Batur volcano. We were dropped at the town of Penelokan, at the top of the ridge, and after walking around a little and getting hassled a lot, we spotted another couple who had just arrived--Steven and Ana from Holland--and all went together to a hotel in a village at the bottom of the valley. After more hassle from the hotel trying to sell us their exorbitantly-priced volcano hike, we followed the guidebook's suggestion and walked to the official hiking office to book for the next day. As the rain came that afternoon, we sat around the hotel talking and then went to bed early in preparation for our hike the next day.
Like Mt. Sinai in Egypt, the volcano hike is timed so that you can see the sunrise, which means that the 5 of us had to start at the unfortunate time of 4 am (the leftover bumper bar from N.Z. came in handy). We followed a guide up the side of the volcano, some of which was level and relatively easy but some very rocky and steep, which was difficult to navigate given that we were half asleep and didn't have enough flashlights to go around. But we made it to the main observation point and sat there with a few other groups of tourists, enjoying the spectacular view of the island of Lombok in the distance and the taller volcano Gunang Anung across from us despite that fact that the sunrise was obscured by a few clouds. We then hiked a little further to the very top, where except for a small store and owner we were all alone with our guide, looking down into the steaming crater, out over the black lava flow and over much of Bali. At the top, our guide cooked us eggs and bananas in the steam from the volcano. We then started our descent, part of which included "skiing" in stretches of black sand. We felt great arriving back at the hiking office around 10 am. It was an awesome experience and amazingly beautiful--see all the photos we took!
After a second breakfast at the hotel, we packed up and the 5 of us headed to the beach at Pading Bai, an even smaller town than Lovina in the south of Bali, and the ferry port for Lombok. Rachel and I hadn't planned to come here, but both Mark and Steven and Ana had been and enjoyed it, so we decided to check it out. Mark and Steven and Ana both had planned to move on the next day, but luckily for us they decided to stick around, and the 5 of us had a great time lounging on the beach but mostly eating, drinking, and talking in the local restaurants. They're all really interesting and friendly people; Irish Mark from is a chef, and Dutch Steven and Ana (via Portugal) are an architect and artist. Steven spent time in Indonesia before and speaks Indonesian, which also came in handy a few times. Although there were a few incredibly pushy massage women, overall Pading Bai was much more low key and low hassle than Lovina. We stayed in a nice garden bungalow (although unfortunately we found evidence of a rodent staying with us a well, who apparently stole one of my soaps). Some mornings were sunny and most afternoons were rainy, including one terrific storm where we sat in the beachfront restaurant drinking beer and jumping at the booming thunder.
Overall we stayed 4 nights in Pading Bai, with Steven and Ana staying 3 and Mark 4 also. It was great to hang out with people and have a very slow pace for awhile. The most exciting thing we saw in Pading Bai were beautiful processions of people to a local Hindu temple, with people dressed in white tops and multi-colored sarongs. We left Pading Bai on Saturday, March 3, and came to Ubud, where I'm writing this blog, for a little end-of-Bali eating and shopping. On our van ride here was a couple from Ostrava, Czech Republic! (Where one of the Partnership churches is located, and where Rachel attended the conference in 2001 and we both visited in 2002.) For lunch today in Ubud we took Mark's suggestion for a Babi Guling (suckling pig) restaurant--it was incredible! (unfortunately no photos) We saw a whole roasted pig being carried into the kitchen. Really juicy, flavorful meat, pork rind, blood sausage, and a few other tasty pieces we couldn't name but loved eating. From here we'll catch a van to the airport tomorrow morning, then on for one night in Singapore tomorrow night (where we plan to meet up with Mark), and then to Vietnam!
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