We spent (un-) Thanskgiving weekend on a boat in Halong Bay. I guess the rain gods decided we'd seen enough typhoon action since being in Vietnam, because our days out there were absolutely gorgeous. We booked a 2 day, one night boat excursion with our hotel on Cat Ba Island (the only inhabited island in Halong Bay), got a shockingly good deal on the price, and were skeptical that the whole experience might be a complete sh*t show, but no! On the first day, we shared our boat with a Dutch couple, a French couple, and two Vietnamese, male crew members (the driver and the cook, but they both did everything around the boat and neither spoke any English). At the end of the day, of cruising around the Bay, and making stops to walk around in caves and go kayaking, we dropped off the other tourists and Joe and I spent that night and the next day in close quarters with our Vietnamese boat dudes. It was great! They ordered us around, (i.e. using sign language to tell us when to go swimming, when to go kayaking and where, to come inside and eat or have tea, etc) served us incredible seafood and otherwise, left us alone, on roof of the boat, where there were two comfortable couches, and incredible sunshine and gorgeous sea-green water and islands as far as we could see.
So many Vietnamese are water people. They live in floating houses, out there in Halong Bay, and in other bodies of water, throughout the country. These people get everywhere by boat. They fish. They have dogs and other pets at their floating houses. I feel bad that the animals don't get to run around much. Then again, dog is eaten for dinner here, sometimes, so maybe it's not so bad to be a water-bound dog, considering the alternatives. It got cold, at night, on Halong Bay. And the houses that people live in are made of thin wood and the wind whips through the karsts at night, and it felt like we were at the end of the earth! But there were tons of Vietnamese, living their lives out there on the water. The stars were amazingly bright in the incredibly dark sky. The sea water in the Bay had a very high level of salinity. Joe cut himself a few times, getting in and out of the boat, because his skin was so dry from the salt. But his cuts healed quickly, because the salt water scoured everything clean. And our hair stuck up like we had salty dread locks. Especially Joe's curls.
We also spent two nights on Cat Ba Island where we watched great sunsets from the balcony of our hotel and walked to the beach. Now, we are back in Hanoi, a city we really, really enjoy, especially now that it has stopped raining. It is a fun city to walk around in. Nice parks and outdoor cafes with numerous places to sit and watch the city life.
In two days, we take a monster-long bus ride to Laos. Our first stop is Vientiane, the capital. We have heard really good things about that city and country from other travelers. Colorful and calm and friendly and very Buddhist. We will spend a couple of weeks in Laos before returning to Bangkok to meet Janie, Joe's mom, who is flying in to spend Christmas with us. That is, if the airport is open again! The political situation in Thailand (mostly, just Bangkok) sounds pretty shaky, to say the least, right now.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Friday, November 21, 2008
Still Raining in Vietnam
We are making our way north, along the coast of Vietnam...Each new place we arrive,there is heavy rain just like in the place we left behind! Remember the scene in "Forrest Gump," when Forrest is fighting in Vietnam and the rains start? "And it rained, and it rained, and it rained...Big old fat rain, etc..." That is really how it rains here. We were considering heading east, into Laos, where the weather reports are dry and sunny, but we both had our hearts set on going to Halong Bay, which is on the northern coast of Vietnam, near the border of China. Halong Bay is probably the place in Vietnam most renowned for its physical beauty. Thousands of uninhabited islands, emerald waters, and limestone cliffs (called karsts) rising up out of the water. Featured prominently in the movie "Indochine," which we loved and highly recommend.
On a happier note, we found an internet cafe with a good enough internet connection for Joe to do some work, in Danang, where we holed up for a few days. Danang was an interesting stop because it is off the tourist trail. Just a big, non-descript, Vietnamese city, where we walk down the street and people stop us and call to us, not to sell us things, but just because we are a strange sight. The amount of times we have been asked by a Vietnamese person where we are from is innumerable. And people always smile when we tell them. They do not seem to harbor resentment or hatred towards the US for the war our countries fought against each other. Instead, they tell us they have a friend who lives in the US or a family member who moved to California...Or, they want to talk about Obama. A guy asked us yesterday, in a very strong accent, if we liked the "white-skinned President or the dark-skinned President more better?"
Now in the city of Hue, which is on the tourist circuit, and has good, traveler restaurants (i.e. menus in English!) and bars and "things to see and buy." It is not raining, so we will probably head out to walk around the old city soon, before getting on a night bus tonight for Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam, which is supposed to have great food and architecture, both influenced heavily by its time as French colony. Joe has his heart set on eating at a recommended French-Vietnamese fusion restaurant, because of a great restaurant we used to go to when we lived in Berkeley, where the Vietnamese chef had been trained in Paris...
On a happier note, we found an internet cafe with a good enough internet connection for Joe to do some work, in Danang, where we holed up for a few days. Danang was an interesting stop because it is off the tourist trail. Just a big, non-descript, Vietnamese city, where we walk down the street and people stop us and call to us, not to sell us things, but just because we are a strange sight. The amount of times we have been asked by a Vietnamese person where we are from is innumerable. And people always smile when we tell them. They do not seem to harbor resentment or hatred towards the US for the war our countries fought against each other. Instead, they tell us they have a friend who lives in the US or a family member who moved to California...Or, they want to talk about Obama. A guy asked us yesterday, in a very strong accent, if we liked the "white-skinned President or the dark-skinned President more better?"
Now in the city of Hue, which is on the tourist circuit, and has good, traveler restaurants (i.e. menus in English!) and bars and "things to see and buy." It is not raining, so we will probably head out to walk around the old city soon, before getting on a night bus tonight for Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam, which is supposed to have great food and architecture, both influenced heavily by its time as French colony. Joe has his heart set on eating at a recommended French-Vietnamese fusion restaurant, because of a great restaurant we used to go to when we lived in Berkeley, where the Vietnamese chef had been trained in Paris...
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Vietnam Vacation
Our introduction to Vietnam occurred in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon), which is the largest city in the country and was the capital of Southern Vietnam before reunification. Arriving from Cambodia's capital, Phnomh Penh, we found HCMC to be much more developed, overwhelming, crowded and more modern. Walking across the street was a real challenge, and Joe had to confidently take my hand and lead me across each, big, 4 lane road, teeming with motos (mopeds are the transportation of choice throughout the region, it seems). We would inch our way out, hoping the motos would swerve around us - and they did, they do, that is how these cities work.
We ate great food in HCMC and found comfortable cafes with wi-fi, which was a nice treat. We also went to the War Remnants Museum, which documents, through photographs, news articles and quotations, the work of journalists and politicians, the Vietnam War. As an American, I felt compelled to go, but it was very, very difficult. At the entrance of the first room that a visitor to the museum walks into, is a quote from Robert McNamara, the U.S. Secretary of defence during the escalation of the war, who said in no uncertain terms, that in looking back at the war, it was all a mistake, a terrible mistake. The photos spoke a million words: of death and destruction, lasting these 30 years after the end of the war. Babies are still being born with deformities (from the extensive use of chemical weapons) and people blown apart by landmines in Vietnam. I felt terrible to think that humans have not learned, that we are still at war with each other, in so many locations across the globe.
On a much brighter note, we met up with a friend of a friend of Joe's who had gone to Northwestern with him and has been living in Ho Chi Minh City for the past 7 years, with her Vietnamese-American husband. They are building a new house in the city, and her husband recently opened a financial services firm there. She is working on establishing a foundation that would provide technical assistance to Vietnamese non-profits. We were picked up in a Lexus by Joe's friend and driven by her Vietnamese drive to the Central market, where we ate a typical Vietnamese breakfast. It was tasty and strange, consisting of broken, deep friend rice and pounded rice paper, with fish sauce, and ordered without meat of all kinds for me, in Vietnamese, which was fun! Being a vege/pescatarian in this country is really, really challenging. Even vegetables are cooked with pork and beef bits! I see tofu for sale in the markets, but never seem to find it on menus...On the subject of food, I was slightly disillusioned with the food we were finding and eating for our first several days in Vietnam. Before arriving here, I had thought that Thai, Vietnamese, Japanese and Mexican were the highest-ranking food genres in my world and this trip to Southeast Asia was going to serve as an ultimate test as to whether Vietnamese or Thai was better, in my book. For the first several days here, I would say that Thai food was blowing Vietnamese food away, but we have had some really amazing food the further north into Vietnam we have travelled and the playing field is evening out somewhat.
From Ho Chi Minh City, we headed north up the coast to Nha Trang. Tourism is heavily concentrated in a few locations in Vietnam. It seems that getting "off the beaten path" is really difficult. The guide books, tour companies, and transportation options are limited: there are about 5-10 destinations that tourists are shunted towards and while these so far seem like good places to visit, they are touristy, and I have to wonder what the next city up the coast, that no tourist busses stop at and none of the guidbooks talk about, is like. We got to Nha Trang at the tale end of a cyclone had pushed through the area and it rained intensely and heavily for about 36 hours while we were there. Joe had previously mentioned that he would like to visit India during the monsoon season, to see what the heavy rains were really like. After our days in Nha Trang, he had decided that really didn't sound like much fun, after all. Our last day there, the weather cleared, and we had a great time walking around the town and sitting on the beach.
Now, we are in Hoi An, a small city on a river, with ancient roots. The old town is a UNESCO world heritage site, and the architecture is old, Chinese/Japanese in style. There are a lot of tourists here, so there are many good places to eat and drink (cheapest beers of the trip so far! 25 cents! this makes Joe very happy). This town is renowned for its tailor shops. Many tourists come here and have clothes and shoes made to order. There are all kinds of shops and designs and materials to choose from. I walked by a store yesterday where I liked the dresses on the manequins, I went inside, had my measurements taken, picked out different colors and patterns of material and will go back today and collect two custom-made dresses, for which I paid $25! Joe was busy drinking 25 cent beers while I shopped, and we made friends of some Dutch, Australian, and Israeli travelers over cheap beers last night...
We ate great food in HCMC and found comfortable cafes with wi-fi, which was a nice treat. We also went to the War Remnants Museum, which documents, through photographs, news articles and quotations, the work of journalists and politicians, the Vietnam War. As an American, I felt compelled to go, but it was very, very difficult. At the entrance of the first room that a visitor to the museum walks into, is a quote from Robert McNamara, the U.S. Secretary of defence during the escalation of the war, who said in no uncertain terms, that in looking back at the war, it was all a mistake, a terrible mistake. The photos spoke a million words: of death and destruction, lasting these 30 years after the end of the war. Babies are still being born with deformities (from the extensive use of chemical weapons) and people blown apart by landmines in Vietnam. I felt terrible to think that humans have not learned, that we are still at war with each other, in so many locations across the globe.
On a much brighter note, we met up with a friend of a friend of Joe's who had gone to Northwestern with him and has been living in Ho Chi Minh City for the past 7 years, with her Vietnamese-American husband. They are building a new house in the city, and her husband recently opened a financial services firm there. She is working on establishing a foundation that would provide technical assistance to Vietnamese non-profits. We were picked up in a Lexus by Joe's friend and driven by her Vietnamese drive to the Central market, where we ate a typical Vietnamese breakfast. It was tasty and strange, consisting of broken, deep friend rice and pounded rice paper, with fish sauce, and ordered without meat of all kinds for me, in Vietnamese, which was fun! Being a vege/pescatarian in this country is really, really challenging. Even vegetables are cooked with pork and beef bits! I see tofu for sale in the markets, but never seem to find it on menus...On the subject of food, I was slightly disillusioned with the food we were finding and eating for our first several days in Vietnam. Before arriving here, I had thought that Thai, Vietnamese, Japanese and Mexican were the highest-ranking food genres in my world and this trip to Southeast Asia was going to serve as an ultimate test as to whether Vietnamese or Thai was better, in my book. For the first several days here, I would say that Thai food was blowing Vietnamese food away, but we have had some really amazing food the further north into Vietnam we have travelled and the playing field is evening out somewhat.
From Ho Chi Minh City, we headed north up the coast to Nha Trang. Tourism is heavily concentrated in a few locations in Vietnam. It seems that getting "off the beaten path" is really difficult. The guide books, tour companies, and transportation options are limited: there are about 5-10 destinations that tourists are shunted towards and while these so far seem like good places to visit, they are touristy, and I have to wonder what the next city up the coast, that no tourist busses stop at and none of the guidbooks talk about, is like. We got to Nha Trang at the tale end of a cyclone had pushed through the area and it rained intensely and heavily for about 36 hours while we were there. Joe had previously mentioned that he would like to visit India during the monsoon season, to see what the heavy rains were really like. After our days in Nha Trang, he had decided that really didn't sound like much fun, after all. Our last day there, the weather cleared, and we had a great time walking around the town and sitting on the beach.
Now, we are in Hoi An, a small city on a river, with ancient roots. The old town is a UNESCO world heritage site, and the architecture is old, Chinese/Japanese in style. There are a lot of tourists here, so there are many good places to eat and drink (cheapest beers of the trip so far! 25 cents! this makes Joe very happy). This town is renowned for its tailor shops. Many tourists come here and have clothes and shoes made to order. There are all kinds of shops and designs and materials to choose from. I walked by a store yesterday where I liked the dresses on the manequins, I went inside, had my measurements taken, picked out different colors and patterns of material and will go back today and collect two custom-made dresses, for which I paid $25! Joe was busy drinking 25 cent beers while I shopped, and we made friends of some Dutch, Australian, and Israeli travelers over cheap beers last night...
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Don't eat cold chicken or fish
That's our new mantra. It sounds, perhaps, self-evident. It's probably not a bad thing to keep in mind wherever you may be, but we can empirically confirm now, that it is indeed a bad idea in Bamako, Mali, and now somewhere between Siem Reap and Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
After making it through 3 healthy weeks in India, I figured we were due for some sort of reckoning at some point, but somehow didn't think it would come in SE Asia, but it has. Erica and I have become incredibly familiar with our cable selection in our little guesthouse room, as we've been spending some solid quality time inside for the past few days. We are blaming it on a the lunch we had mid-trip between Siem Reap and Phnom Penh. I had a lukewarm Chicken curry and Erica had a not so warm fish soup. It is oddly similar to our undoing in West Africa as well, where she had lukewarm grilled fish, and I lukewarm grilled chicken. We have self-medicated now, however, and are sincerely on the mend, which is a wonderful thing. We'll see if we can make some better lunch decisions moving forward.
Tomorrow is the Cambodian independence day, which should be relatively exciting here in the capital, and then we are planning on going to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam.
After making it through 3 healthy weeks in India, I figured we were due for some sort of reckoning at some point, but somehow didn't think it would come in SE Asia, but it has. Erica and I have become incredibly familiar with our cable selection in our little guesthouse room, as we've been spending some solid quality time inside for the past few days. We are blaming it on a the lunch we had mid-trip between Siem Reap and Phnom Penh. I had a lukewarm Chicken curry and Erica had a not so warm fish soup. It is oddly similar to our undoing in West Africa as well, where she had lukewarm grilled fish, and I lukewarm grilled chicken. We have self-medicated now, however, and are sincerely on the mend, which is a wonderful thing. We'll see if we can make some better lunch decisions moving forward.
Tomorrow is the Cambodian independence day, which should be relatively exciting here in the capital, and then we are planning on going to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Cambodia: Confusion, Temples, Elections
Arrived in Cambodia on Halloween, by way of a very un-used, backwater border post with Thailand, called Psar Pruhm. We were the only non- Thai/Cambodians at the border crossing and we had to rouse the Cambodian visa official from a nap in his hammock to issue us a visa. From that point forward, communication got very difficult. In the touristy parts of Thailand, English is spoken and written a lot. In Psar Pruhm, there were few signs in a non-Cambodian alphabet and NO ONE spoke English. We struck out, several times, when attempting to find out about transportation options to the city, Battambang, about four hours away, that was our first over-night destination in Cambodia. People just kept telling us "take taxi." When we asked about busses (we're on a budget!), we received blank stares. At the first intermediate-sized town we visited, one taxi driver pulled up to another taxi driver on the dirt road (all roads in this part of Cambodia are dirt- and in very bumpy shape!)and tried to hand us off for the next portion of our trip. Again, we tried to ask about busses or a bus station. Nothing. Finally, Joe asked if we could be taken to the hotel in town, which was in our guide book; we hoped someone there would speak English or know how we could get a bus to Battambang. The taxi drivers got very excited when they understood we wanted to go to the hotel- it was the first thing they understood us say at all! We pulled up to the hotel and the proprietess, who spoke some English, offered to help us communicate...She confirmed that the only way to get to Battambang was by taxi, the road was too bad for busses, and she walked us out to the street to find a taxi: it was the one and only taxi in town, who we had just had drop us off at the hotel 20 minutes ago! Confusion all around...Everyone laughed and we got in the taxi for a 4-hour ride to Battambang (which was a great introduction to Cambodia: a chill town on a pretty river, with wonderful food, friendly people, etc).
From Battambang, we took a 7 hour boat ride with 30 other tourists to the major tourist destination of Siem Reap, where the ancient temples of Angkor Wat (sometimes referred to as the 8th Wonder of the World, but I wonder how many other places are called that, too?) are located. The boat ride was amazing! Least of all because it started at 7 a.m. and a friendly tourist from England who we had met the night before wanted to start drinking his good birthday bottle of whiskey with Joe and I and others- at 7 a.m. It was a really fun day, involved a 2nd bottle of local (horrible) alcohol purchased en route before 9 a.m. and great scenery: bright green rice paddies, wide open skies, and wooden houses, and villages built on stilts, populated by fishermen/women, who basically live on water...
Angkor Wat is amazing, even though I am sort of "templed out" (so many temples here in Asia!). Spread out over 20 miles, and built by Khmer (the ethnicity of Cambodia) rulers from the 11-14th centuries, are tens and tens of temples, both Buddhist and Hindu. The surroundings are lush, jungly, wet, and the temples are in various states of ruin or restoration...We rented bicycles and biked all over, getting there (with 100s of other tourists) in time for sunrise at the major temple complex: Angkor Wat. I enjoyed biking through the exotic landscape as much as actually getting off our bikes and walking into and around the different temples, but I didn't tell Joe that - turns out he's a temple freak and can't get enough of this ancient, religious architecture!
We are really enjoying our time here. The people are great and friendly, the scenery is superb, and we have enjoyed every meal we've eaten (one highlight was when we went to a casual restaurant near our guest house in Siem Reap, where we were the only foreigners and there was no menu and almost no English spoken. All the staff gathered around us and used their combined efforts to help us order one beef and one vegetable rice and they all laughed hysterically when we had been presented with our food and utensils, which included different empty bowls, and sauces, chillies, a huge array of raw vegetables on ice, a pot of rice and we began trying different things and putting them in our bowls; we were obviously doing something VERY wrong and funny but we had no idea what it was), and the scenery is superb. But Cambodia has a very, very painful recent history. Hundreds of thousands of Cambodians were killed during and right after the U.S. war with Vietnam, when the brutal Khmer Rouge took power here. The country lost more than 10% of its population and it is still recovering, obviously.
It is election day morning in the U.S. and I am in a high state of excitement and anticipation, here in Phnomh Penh (the capital of Cambodia). I want to wake up tomorrow at a.m. our time (6 p.m. Eastern time) and begin to watch the election coverage, before meeting up at a Democrats Abroad party here...
From Battambang, we took a 7 hour boat ride with 30 other tourists to the major tourist destination of Siem Reap, where the ancient temples of Angkor Wat (sometimes referred to as the 8th Wonder of the World, but I wonder how many other places are called that, too?) are located. The boat ride was amazing! Least of all because it started at 7 a.m. and a friendly tourist from England who we had met the night before wanted to start drinking his good birthday bottle of whiskey with Joe and I and others- at 7 a.m. It was a really fun day, involved a 2nd bottle of local (horrible) alcohol purchased en route before 9 a.m. and great scenery: bright green rice paddies, wide open skies, and wooden houses, and villages built on stilts, populated by fishermen/women, who basically live on water...
Angkor Wat is amazing, even though I am sort of "templed out" (so many temples here in Asia!). Spread out over 20 miles, and built by Khmer (the ethnicity of Cambodia) rulers from the 11-14th centuries, are tens and tens of temples, both Buddhist and Hindu. The surroundings are lush, jungly, wet, and the temples are in various states of ruin or restoration...We rented bicycles and biked all over, getting there (with 100s of other tourists) in time for sunrise at the major temple complex: Angkor Wat. I enjoyed biking through the exotic landscape as much as actually getting off our bikes and walking into and around the different temples, but I didn't tell Joe that - turns out he's a temple freak and can't get enough of this ancient, religious architecture!
We are really enjoying our time here. The people are great and friendly, the scenery is superb, and we have enjoyed every meal we've eaten (one highlight was when we went to a casual restaurant near our guest house in Siem Reap, where we were the only foreigners and there was no menu and almost no English spoken. All the staff gathered around us and used their combined efforts to help us order one beef and one vegetable rice and they all laughed hysterically when we had been presented with our food and utensils, which included different empty bowls, and sauces, chillies, a huge array of raw vegetables on ice, a pot of rice and we began trying different things and putting them in our bowls; we were obviously doing something VERY wrong and funny but we had no idea what it was), and the scenery is superb. But Cambodia has a very, very painful recent history. Hundreds of thousands of Cambodians were killed during and right after the U.S. war with Vietnam, when the brutal Khmer Rouge took power here. The country lost more than 10% of its population and it is still recovering, obviously.
It is election day morning in the U.S. and I am in a high state of excitement and anticipation, here in Phnomh Penh (the capital of Cambodia). I want to wake up tomorrow at a.m. our time (6 p.m. Eastern time) and begin to watch the election coverage, before meeting up at a Democrats Abroad party here...
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