Halloween!

The Sketch

The Costumes

The J.O.Lanterns

The Pixelated Gourd

Watercolorz

Here are some scans from my travel notebook:

A trip to Germany in Alameda, to China in Oakland, to Mexico in Fruitvale -or- Around the world in East Bay

A couple weekends ago, JD wanted to explore Oakland's Chinatown. Now not to brag on this obnoxious travel blog of ours, but having been to San Francisco's Chinatown, Portland's Chinatown, Vancouver's Chinatown, Los Angeles's Chinatown, Lima's Chinatown, Buenos Aires' China and to China itself, Oakland's Chinatown was nothing to write "home" about... the pagoda roofs look more intriguing from 880 than from ground level. However, unlike some of the others I listed, Oakland's Chinatown seems to harbor a thriving community, complete with jostling sidewalk vegetable stalls, self-proclaimedly legendary dim sum palaces, and cheap FOBA fashions.

We continued east on our topologically incorrect tour of the world, to Alameda where we searched out east bay's German enclave: Speisekammer. As luck would have it, they just happened to be celebrating Oktoberfest that day complete with bratwurst, metric increments of beer, spaetzel, drindl, leiderhosen, oompa bands, and lots of sunshine. I drank the ever girly radler, a combination of beer and lemonade and John had an incredibly delicious apple beer and I unfortunately cannot remember the name. I give zwei thumbs up to Speisekammer and their Oktoberfest, which they amazingly celebrated for an entire month.

Jumping ahead a week, we headed south, both literally and figuratively, to Fruitvale to seek out el corazon de la mission de Oakland. Driving along International Boulevard seems entirely appropriate as you attempt to choose a taqueria in Fruitvale. Based on a graduate school classmate's recommendation, we settled on El Huarache Azteca, which sports amazing Apocalypto-style murals and some of the most delicious mole I have ever tasted in my thusfar brief albeit mexican-food-loving life. I ate a thing called an alambre, which seemed like a meat scramble without any eggs and it was delicious.

I hope to continue our global explorations of Oakland, but I am not sure where in the world we might end up next. One could cover just about all of these major ethnic food groups in one nook of Berkeley's vast network of college eateries, but that is neither here nor there. Next post will be about our mini taco crawl down Milpas in Santa Barbara, where we were ever closer to Mexico, i.e. the real deal.

Humble abodes

In an attempt to keep this blog alive while Shanny D. attends graduate school, I thought I would post some pictures of our new semi-permanent abodes. It has now been about two months since we became stationary and we have more or less settled in to our respective homes for (hopefully) the next two years.

Shanny's cozy studio:

Johnny D.'s San Clemente Graduate Student Housing:

Bikes! (You can almost see campus from here!)

Dining Nook!

More Bikes!

JD's Room and JD!

Kitchen and Living Room!

Stay tuned for other exciting developments in our presently stationary lives.

Asleep on the Greyhound

Our airlines are good, but because there is little demand for intercity ground transportation, my expectations for taking the Greyhound were low. Now that I am in Santa Barbara without a car, I have to get to the Bay Area to visit Shannon and back in time on Monday for school. I have two options, Amtrak and Greyhound. Both cost between $35-$50, but Greyhound has a much more flexible schedule, allowing me to leave at 8:45 or 11:30PM and get into Santa Barbara at 4:30 and 9:30AM respectively. This lets me sleep on the bus and head straight to class if I take the redeye.

In South America, there are a whole host of bus companies to choose from, too. Not in the US, we have greyhound and that's it. Amtrak runs a couple of buses, but that's only in conjunction with their train travel. The buses in Peru and Argentina were great. They were inexpensive and more or less comfortable, usually with a nice foot rest and in Argentina a meal and snack. Well, the Greyhound is not like that. It was crowded and at best as nice as the worst of buses we took in Peru. It also cost 3 times more than most of the comparable buses we took in Argentina.

I feel like the comparison to South America is more than fair. In the absence of a decent public train system, the local economy has at least stepped in to provide buses. America has no train (well there is Amtrak but its slower and more expensive than the bus!), air flight is expensive, so you'd think that more people would use buses. Que Lastima!

The ride wasn't awful, though. The bus station in Oakland is beautiful with 70 year old art deco flourishes. The people who rode with me were pretty normal, and I actually managed to get a little sleep, too. In the end, I got back to Santa Barbara on time and two large cups of coffee later, connected with the Bus to campus from the Santa Barbara bus terminal.

Trip Digest, part two

This was bound to happen. We come back and are never heard from again. I have hit the ground running preparing for and now attending classes at Berkeley. I went apartment hunting the first day we were back, found an apartment the next day, moved in the day after that, attended meetings for the next two days and then started school the day after that! I am officially a golden bear and a new resident of Oakland.

Here are our trip's pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/fialashannon.

All 2000+ of them.

Chungking Mansions

Tonight is our last night in Hong Kong. Last night we were told by our various Indian hotel managers that we would need to move rooms in the morning because they were doing some "remodeling" today. So we woke up, packed up, and went with them to the fourteenth floor to see their other rooms, but it turns out the person presently in that room was still sleeping. The Indian guy recommended we check out another Indian guy's guesthouse on the seventh floor, which was HK$40 more, but also alot nicer. Our first room was about the size of a normal hotel room's bathroom with barely a full bed on a homemade wooden platform that sort of snapped when both of us sat on it, an air conditioner that made fire alarm-type sounds when it shut off and on, a TV that only showed fuzz on a homemade shelf that was also breaking, and a bathroom the size of a broom closet with a shower over the toilet. The luggage went under this sketchily lofted bed. When we told another Indian guy that our tv did not work, he offered to lend us a dvd, then left and never came back. This is what $13 gets you for accomodation in Hong Kong.

As we collected our stuff from our old room to move to our new room, the "remodelling" had already commenced. An African man was questioning our Indian "hotel managers" concerning the whereabouts of his wife's tv. The Indian guy told him they threw it out, which lead to alot of yelling, while other Indian guys moved stuff out into the hall, and saw us getting the heck out of there. Apparently "remodelling" is code word for tenant dispute around the Chungking Mansions.

Our new room is about the same size. The tv gets one channel (an improvement!). I expect that the air conditioner will not make alarming noises. The bed is not lofted so there is no room for luggage, but the bathroom is slightly larger. This is what $18 gets you in Hong Kong.

This entire labrythine 15-story complex reeks of sketchiness. People from around the world mill about downstairs: Indians offer you expensive naan, Africans loiter in groups, scantily clad ladies make you wonder about your ability to identify prostitutes, signs advertise visa services, merchants sell fake iPods and shoes and saris, and money changers occupy every corner.

Apparently Chungking Mansions was featured in Wong Kar-Wai's film, Chungking Express. I feel mislead now by the actor in his other film, In the Mood for Love, because I thought he said Hong Kong was not as steamy as Singapore, but he and I may be mistaken because it is really really hot here. Obviously I have some films to watch and re-watch when I get home.

To celebrate our last night in Hong Kong, and Asia in general, John and I saw, Lauging Gor-Turning Point, which is a local movie in Cantonese with English and Chinese subtitles. Two box office employees at the theater got a fit of the giggles when two white tourists said they wanted to see this movie. They said, 'But it's Chinese!' and we said, 'We know, but there are English subtitles'... it's like tourists have never before wanted to see local movies or something. The movie was a little confusing, mostly because the subtitles went really fast, and it may or may not have been Part two, but it was still awesome to see the actors drinking the Blue Girl Beer and the green-topped water they sell here and using HK currency and car-chasing through Hong Kong's streets. A good way to end our last night in Hong Kong, but we still have to find a way to occupy ourselves until our 10pm flight tomorrow. The question is: Can we afford Hong Kong Disneyland?

No More Beyong

We are back in Hong Kong. Although we are both depressed that our trip is finally over, it is fun to be in a place where we know our way around. When we first arrived here three months ago, we got miserably lost and confused because we didn't realize "subway" meant pedestrian underpass and came up on the opposite side of the street wondering where the trains were... we are doing a bit better this time around, even though we got lost on the south side of the island today and had to hike through the woods of Repulse Bay.

Tomorrow is our last day and we plan to spend it in exploring the New Territories that lie between Hong Kong Island and China. Then Wednesday we fly home.

Koala lumper

Malaysia's capitol city seems like a grittier, less glitzy version of Singapore. There is very little to no glamor in Kuala Lumpur, but it is still an interesting place to explore. We are staying near Chinatown, which seems more like an outdoor mall than a place where Chinese people still live. Little India still seems true to its name though. Sari textile shops and Bollywood CD stores sit elbow to elbow with restaurants serving up rotis and other items hot off the tandoor. From there, it is a short hop to the British Colonial district with a motley crew of Tudor buildings dropped out of the Alps and buildings covered in scallops and cupolas, topped off with a large fountain in the shape of a carnivorous pitcher plant, giant red flowers adorning the lightposts, and Malaysian flags sprinkled everywhere for garnish.

Further north the neighborhoods become more "Malay" with Chow Kit's bazaar, where I was almost knocked out by the overpowering smell of durian and in Kampung Baru, where the open-air Malay dinner buffets fill you until you almost burst, but somehow you find room for odd homemade desserts, like breadfruit donuts and banana covered in coconut. From Kampung Baru you have an clear view of Petronas Towers and while standing among the little one story tin roofed restaurants it looks like it dropped from outerspace, but it is just one short subway ride away.

We haven't been up in the Petronas Towers quite yet, but we have been to its mall. We also went to The Mall to see its innovative food court architecture. The Mall's food court is supposed to look like a streetscape, but somehow fails to create a better dining experience than actually going to one of these neighborhoods and eating on the street.

Tomorrow we are headed out to the Forestry Research Institute to soak up our last dose of jungle, but Sunday morning before we fly to Hong Kong, we will try to nab a free ticket to the Petronas skydeck so we can appreciate Kuala Lumpur from the air before flying out.

Traveling in the state of Islam

Before coming to Malaysia, I will admit that I was a little apprehensive because I wasn't sure what it would be like to travel in a predominantly Muslim country. Sitting in Thailand, reading Lonely Planet Southeast Asia's extremely biased account on Malaysia, made me wonder what we were getting ourselves into. Turns out LP is wrong again. Why would they hire someone who apparently hates a country to write the chapter about it? Thankfully the first thing we did in Georgetown was trade LP SEA for LP Malaysia and it is much more positive.

And Malaysia is awesome! Maybe I should be thankful LP SEA hates on Malaysia since less travellers seem to come here. I actually like most of the Muslim aspects of Malaysia's culture.

Five times a day prayers are broadcast from mosques in every town. At sunset in California, I will miss the melancholic singing of sentences from the Koran. Plus, Muslim food is really delicious, except for the fact that it involves no bacon. And they are not as conservative as I might have feared. Some women wear headscarves, but not all of them. My favorite is girls who are very nicely, fashionably dressed and otherwise look like any other citydweller, then they have their headscarf. So far, no one has told me I was shamefully unmodest for wearing shorts (at least to my face and in English).

In addition to the daily prayer broadcasts, I have enjoyed the varied mosque architecture and almost every major town has an old Sultan Palace, constructed in traditional Malay styles. The British colonialists got a little carried away when they were building in Kuala Lumpur. A few too many cupolas and flourishes make the old railway station look more Russian than Malay. A few days ago we visited the Islamic Arts Museum and I learned a fair amount about Islam. Perhaps this is what Rick Steves means about travel as a political act.

There have been some downsides to traveling in an Islamic country, namely the lack of booze. Muslims don't drink alcohol and on the east coast where things are more conservative, 7/11 doesn't even sell beer! Our hostel had placed a handwritten sign in every room that said, 'We Have Beer," which made it seem like a speakeasy in the Prohibition. You would quietly ask the Chinese owner about the beer and hand over about $5. Then he would go into some hidden room and come back with a big bottle cold Tiger for you.

The other glaring difference is the occasional lady in full cover, not just the headscarf, but the full body scarf with a slit for eyes. A full body black robe sounds like a recipe for disaster when I can hardly sweat enough in shorts and a shirt, but maybe they are used to it. I think it would be harder to travel in the middle east or a country like Brunei where the majority of women wear the black robes because the language and culture barrier between you becomes almost physical.

Other than that, traveling in Malaysia has been awesome. Surprisingly, we have seen alot of European families traveling here. Who knew Malaysia was the hot spot for a little European summer vacation? Family or no, I would recommend Malaysia to pretty much anyone, assuming they like Chinese and Indian food.

Kuala Selangor

Yesterday we left Kuala Lumpur for an overnight trip to Kuala Selangor. We went to the bus station and asked where to catch this bus, but were told four different things from four different people. We prodded and directed out to the street in front of the bus station where a whiskered old Chinese guy with a fanny pack and a checkered hat told us we were in the correct place. We waited in the shade until the bus miraculously materialized and whisked us past suburbs and then palm plantations to K. Selangor.

Kuala Selangor is a tiny town surrounded by jungle that transitions into mangroves closer to the Straits of Melaka. Unfortunately we could not see Sumatra from where we stood. You can see all of Kuala Selangor in about five minutes because there are only four streets, but it is still a cool town because of three nearby parks. Park one is actually a hill, Bukit Malawati, home to various points of vague historical interest, like a 'poison well' used to punish traitors, a 'new moon house' used to detect the beginning of the holy month of Ramadan, a few cannon, a functioning lighthouse, and two species of monkey that you can feed yams. The silver leaf monkeys are the nice monkeys, easily recognized by their gray fur and mohawks and their niceness. Macaques are the not nice monkeys, easily remembered by their brown fur and their tendency to bear their giant incisors in your general direction. One little German boy could not get this down and went away with perhaps a lifelong fear of all monkeys.

From the Bukit, we went in search of Taman Alum Nature Park, which stretches from the hill to the Sengai Selangor River and includes some pretty sweet boardwalks through mangrove forests. We saw more of those two monkey species in the woods, but in their natural habitat, not fighting over yams, they both seemed much more tranquil. We saw tiny crabs living in holes in the tidal mud beneath the mangroves, plus mudskippers. I saw more herons than I have ever seen in one place in my life. For $5, we spent the night in a wooden A-frame tent that leaned visibly and as one English man put it, "looked a little wonky."

We met this English man at the Kampung Kelantin Firefly Park outside of town, where you pay three dollars to be paddled up Sengai Selangor in a malay boat by a Malaysian to see these amazing fireflies that flash in unison. The effect is like whole bushes are lit with tiny Christmas lights and from across the river it looks like nature is throwing a rave. A very strange phenomenon, but really amazing to see. We shared our boat with the English man and his son, while his wife occupied another boat with their other two sons. They told us England is too cold for fireflies, but they had seen the occasional, sultry firefly while in Italy. On hot humid nights growing up in Michigan we used to catch fireflies, or lightning bugs as we liked to call them, and keep them in jars. You wouldn't think about doing that at this park though - the fine for catching a firefly is 1000 Malaysian Ringit. Look, don't touch.

The Malls of Southeast Asia

Malls are boring. Every mall in America pretty much has the same stuff, the same clothing conglomerates, the same ice cream shops, the same Mcdonalds serving the same Big Whopping Heart Attacks. The footpring varies from mall to mall, a fountain here, a crazy sculpture there, but for the most part they pretty much mimic the mall next door... or the new latest and greatest supermall tries to one up the old latest and greatest supermall with some fancier bad architecture or new giant fountain (or the developer scraps the mall idea altogether and decides to put in a Wallmart). Malls don't even really serve much of a purpose anymore, now that you can go online and get everything you need, cheaper than the mall, with a bigger selection delivered right to your door.

In Southeast Asia, things are different. There are still malls, but they aren't the same as their American counterparts. Some of them are bigger and more ostentatious than any I have seen in America. Some of them are more utilitarian and resemble the ghetto mall from the movie Mallrats... and some of them are even worth going to. Many of the malls in Southeast Asia aren't inhabited by the usual corporate mall suspects that plague American malls. They aren't filled with The Gap, Miller's Outpost, or Sbarro's Pizza. Instead many of SE Asia's malls are filled with small business owners managing Butiks as they are called in Malaysia. They sell products from local designers (some of which are more quirky than you could find in a regular mall). The best part is that the products for sale are usually cheaper than their big business counterpart.

The best part is the food courts. In Malaysia and Singapore, especially, the mall food court is a panaloply of local chefs cooking the local specialties. There is a lot more variety in the food offered in the Malaysian mall food court, there is Indian, Malay, Muslim Indian, Chinese (mostly the Southern Regions around Canton), Boba Nyonya... Its usually pretty tasty and its usually cooked fresh in front of you, no microwave involved.

That's not to say that the big American companies aren't here, they are. There are malls that cater to people who can afford big name brands, but I like the ones that emloy local merchants selling local products and food. I just wish the model could work in the US.

183 days down, 9 nine to go

Somewhere around Singapore we marked our 100th day of traveling in Asia, and if you count our time in South America, it was about our 180th day of being abroad this year. Here's to half a year abroad and counting.

Tomorrow we move up to Kuala Lumpur. Then we only have Hong Kong, revisited, and Macau, until we face reality again.

Singapura, City of Merlions

About three months ago while sitting in Pingyao, China, we looked at map and decided we would be able to travel from Beijing to Singapore (2,769 miles, as the crow flies and we did not fly like crows) in that amount of time. I was a little skeptical at times that we would make it, but I am glad we did. I had no idea Singapore would be so awesome.

Prior to this trip, I am not sure I even knew where Singapore was - who knew there was a tiny city-island-nation stuck on the end of peninsular Malaysia?! Awhile ago I saw Wong Kar-wai's 'In the Mood for Love,' which is set in Hong Kong, but the main character moves to Singapore, then goes back to Hong Kong, and he complains about how hot and exotic and foreign Singapore is. That, plus vague rumors about chewing gum bans and indoor skiing, was about all I knew about Singapore until about five days ago.

Now I know this:

1. Singapore is most certainly hot, but coming from San Francisco, it was strangely comfortable and we felt at home there. Yet, Singapore's mix of Chinese, Malay, and Indian culture is tantalizingly exotic. Every sign is in four languages!
   
2. Singapore has top-notch, but cheap food: in each neighborhood they have moved the street food vendors under a roof called a food centre. Although I am not sure Malay-Indian-Thai-Indonesian-Chinese food courts really exist in the US, I have a new appreciation for food courts now.
   
3. Singapore has impressive architecture, both new and old: the colonial and the turn-of-the-century Peranakan terrace architecture of the Chinese immigrants are beautiful and well-preserved, but then half a block away, Singapore has put an amazing amount of effort and ingenuity into its mall architecture. I am not a huge fan of malls, but...
4. Singapore does shopping more magnificently than any other country I have visited, and here I thought Bangkok was the paragon of shopping. Ironically, the only thing I bought in Singapore was an American book at Borders, The Omnivore's Dilemma, which I must read as a part of my upcoming Graduate Student Instructor responsibilities. So far it seems depressing. This is why I read fiction.
   
5. To round out the shopping, Singapore has world class museums: we almost broke our feet walking around the Asian Civilizations and Singapore Art Museums.
   
6. And Singapore's zoo is rumored to be THE BEST IN THE WORLD. This has been a zoo-ful year for us: Bolivian zoo where monkeys climbed on John; San Diego zoo, a contender for best in the world; Zoo Lipis, in Malaysia, contender for world's worst zoo; and Singapore zoo, where they have an 'Fragile Forest' walk-through exhibit with not just birds and butterflies, but mammals inside: mouse deer, tree kangaroos, flying foxes, lemurs, sloths all whiz past your head and get underfoot and hang from the trees and bite your finger (if you are John and you put your finger near a tree kangaroo's mouth) as you walk through, plus they have free-ranging Orang-utans!

The downside to Singapore might be getting lost in a mall. Singapore is also expensive relative to its neighbors, but I am pretty sure it was still cheaper than San Francisco. All in all, I was sad to leave, which is the ultimate measure of how much I have enjoyed the cities we have visited.

Now we are back in Malaysia, sweating in Melaka. I am happy to see street cats again, which are entirely lacking in Singapore, but we ate at a food court and it just wasn't the same. We forgot that the best street foods are still sold on the street in Malaysia.

In the wake of the Pequod

So I started reading 'Moby Dick' right around a year ago as a part of an online book club with some people I know. Then I realized I should spend more time studying for the GRE and less time reading and then one thing lead to another and I never picked it back up. I meant to bring it with me on this trip to finish it, but somehow misplaced it and forgot it. Then by the fate of an auspicious book exchange, I picked up another 'Moby Dick' at some forgotten location on our mighty Asian travels.

Last August, I had found 'Moby Dick' a little laborious to read, but after reading the likes of 'Don Quixote' with Cervantes' maddening tangents, and 'Count of Monte Cristo,' which was sloppily written as quickly as possible to make debt-ridden Dumas some cash, and 'Robison Crusoe,' which is alright until poor Robin remembers god and becomes obsessed with evangelizing to the cannabalistic savages. After this buffet of tedious reading, 'Moby Dick' seemed like a piece of cake.

I had left Ishmael and the crew somewhere around the Pequod's first lowering to go a hunting. I tore through the book as we tore around Malaysia first on a bus from Georgetown to the east coast Muslim stronghold of Kota Bharu and then on the 'jungle train' from Kota Bharu south where we got off in Kuala Lipis. While on the train I followed the Pequod as it sailed from the Rio de la Plata delta, fastforwarded across the Pacific ocean to come up through the Straits of Java, where they were chased by Malay pirates, then across the South China Sea to the historic whaling grounds near Japan.

While barreling through the jungle with leaves and branches hitting the windows, I realized that in the year that I put down 'Moby Dick' the Pequod has been following me on my world travels in its own eternal literary wanderings. Deep thoughts!

Let's hope my journey doesn't come to a similar end.

Teh lemon ais

This was the first beverage I spotted at our 'Tourist Guesthouse' in Georgetown, Malaysia.

Our trip from Hat Yai, Thailand to Penang, Malaysia was fairly easy as far as border crossings go. From the Tollway, Malaysia looks disorientingly like the United States: a divided highway with rest stops?! But the palm plantations and the people scootering in the shoulder give Malaysia away.

Georgetown's architecture is good-looking, old but not in ruin, colonial with a splash of China thrown in. I am not sure I have ever been to a former British colony before... except New England, I guess, but somehow South America and Southeast Asia seem different. One difference with our colonial heritage is that Thais and Malays drive on the 'wrong' side of the road, which makes me wonder if they drive on the wrong side of the road all the way over to India. Myanmar, Bangladesh, I am looking at you and I do not want to look right.

Malaysia's clame to fame seems to be its melting pot of cultures: Little India, Chinatown, Indonesia influences, Muslim food and culture, and of course, Malay dishes. We just ate some delicious streetside Indian food: a little okra, sneak some fish in there, some chicken covered in red sauce, a splash of curry or two thrown in for good measure, all on a giant mound of rice, garnished with some cucumber, and chased with a ginger beer.

Might I add that it is nice to be in a country that uses a familiar alphabet again? Viet Nam didn't count because they use so many different symbols above the letters that things don't sound anything like they look. At least here we can read street signs and we might stand a small chance of not slaughtering the languange.

Malaysia, so far so good. At the immigration desk, there was a poster that stated: "Malaysia - Truly Asia," which I thought was a little risky. Was does that make everybody else around here, hm? But perhaps with its blend of cultures, Malaysia is greater than the sum of its parts.

The Isthmus of Kra!

So Thailand is actually much more enjoyable after you get off those godforsaken islands. In fairness I am reading 'Robinson Crusoe' right now, so maybe I am just prejudiced toward "Islands of Despair." Thankfully I was able to catch a ferry before I had to start shooting goats and fending off cannibals. Anyways, we are now in Krabi on The Isthmus of KRA. Sounds like something out of 'Lord of the Rings,' doesn't it?

We just had an epically fun day of motorscootering. We scooted up to the Tiger Cave Temple and saw some monks in the cliff dwellings. We also saw some sort of monitor lizard running off into the woods and some more tropical squirrels. And monkeys! which was actually scary because they can steal things from you. We also saw a dead cat in a dumpster, which was not so cool. Then we hiked up a 1200 steps to see another Buddha footprint and the site was supposed to be really sacred but Thai kids were up there hanging out singing along to their Thai pop from their cellphones. I was also stung by a bee, perhaps sent by Buddha to punish my exasperation with his footprints.

Next we scootered up to a Khao Panom Benja National Park and started off on a 'nature trail' that went straight up the side of a mountain. I don't think I would classify that as a nature trail, but it ended at a sweet waterfall. During the hike, another sort of monitor lizard was surprised out of his sunbathing revelry and scurried last minute over my foot, which made me scream. Then I walked headfirst into the web of the largest spider I think I have ever seen. It's legspan was the size of my fist... luckily it did not end up on my face. I am not sure why all the bad things happened to me today.

And I almost forgot! On the way back from the National Park there was a turn-off for a cave. We scooted down a dirt path through palm and rubber plantations, honking at cows, swerving around elephant poo, when a lady flagged us down. She rented out headlamps for the cave. We borrowed two and she explained to us how it would go: 'walk up the steps to a small opening, crawl through to a small cave, then follow the arrows to a larger cave.' So far so good, right? Then she said, 'Don't worry about the bats.' John said, 'The what?' 'The bats,' she repeated while flapping her arms, 'you know, like batman? but they are ok. It's Thailand, it's ok.' The hike went like she said and I am glad she warned us because there were alot bats in that cave, but it was the most interesting caving experience I have had outside of Mount Saint Helen's lava tube hike. Basically you crawl into this cave with arrows as your only guide and decaying wooden staircases and elevated walkways are the only thing between you and murky cave water at times. Stalagtites and stalagmites and weird cave molds grow all over the place. Unfortunately, most caves that I have visited are completely lit up, which seems to defeat the thrilling purpose of caving.

We had petrol to burn so we scootered down to Ao Nang's beaches, but it was dark by the time we arrived and as it turns out, there isn't much to see or do at a beach in the dark unless you have the means to build a bonfire, which we did not. Luckily there was a night market happening nearby and we ate some chicken skewers (passed on the chicken heart) and a custard-apple. On the way back we debated the best defensive driving tactics for stray dogs in the road at night... but luckily we arrived safely back in Krabi.

We just gorged ourselves on foods at Krabi's weekend night market: fried onion and peanut dumplings, seafoods served on a bamboo-half, homemade rice sausage, baked quail eggs, fried ice cream, and a banana 'pancake,' which, we have finally learned, is more like a crepe. Who knew Krabi was a good place to spend a Saturday night?

So I take back what I said about Thailand. The Andaman coast is very nice.

Faranglandia

You know, Thailand is really beautiful and if you have a stressful job that earns you some good money, you should go. You should go if you don't have that, either, because as a traveler, for the most part, Thailand offers a good bang for your buck, especially if you have that stressful job but it doesn't earn you good money. Then you'd probably have to blow off some steam, and Thailand is a good place to get away from it all (distance-wise that is), or at least to take a vacation that includes powdery white sand, hypercolor fish, and jewelry colored water.

You could probably get about 50% of the experience in your own city, wherever that may be. Visit the hip/college neighborhood, eat some ethnic food, go to the store and buy a cheap rice beer and drink it while its really cold. That's about half of the experience. Really.

The other half of the experience is to take all that (including all the people at those places with you) and to pick them up and plop them on an island with powdery white sand, hypercolor fish, and jewelry colored water. Sprinkle in a couple of restaurants that each dish out every sort of food known to man (not well, mind you- envisions signs on the front of the restaurant that say- Italian, Pizza, Meditaranean, English, French, German, Chinese, and Thai- yes Thai is usually last), and motorbikes and you have the experience.

The reason I'm writing about this, is that the Ko Samui archipelago has probably been the biggest cultural shock I've experienced while traveling, and that's because its so western. Coming from Vietnam, the laid back pace was very unexpected, especially in Bangkok.

Farang is what the Thais call white people.

Welcome to The city of angels, the great city, the eternal jewel city, the impregnable city of God Indra, the grand capital of the world, aka Bangkok

We flew into Bangkok about a week ago and were blown away by the abundance of delicious street food and creative sidewalk sale fashions. Bangkok is a very modern city. Every once in awhile you can spot an old wooden remnant hidden in the shadow of a Vegas-style hotel. Bangkok's public transportation and mall selection is more diverse and classy than San Francisco's: brand-new-looking Skytrain monorails, squeaky clean subways, neon pink cabs (though prices are still negotiable) and a phenomenon that has not yet reached SF: VIP movie theater seating that combines luxury clubbing table service with lazy boy cinema.

Even the trains are classy. We caught a train down to Surat Thani en route to the ferry to Koh Samui and Thai trains put China's to shame. Fold down beds luxuriously wide that convert into comfortable chairs. People selling ice cold cans of beer for a dollar. Windows that open. What more could you ask for from a sleeper train?

We have worked our way up the Samui archipelago. Although palm-studded white sand blue water beaches are beautiful, Koh Samui seemed disappointingly overdeveloped. Koh Phangan was better, but we missed the half moon party and left before the black moon party and didn't want to stick around for the real deal Full moon party so it seemed like it wasn't quite reaching it's full potential. A beach community waiting in the trough for the next monstrous wave of tourists to come crashing down on its shores. We just arrived on Koh Tao and it seems to come the closest to a remote island paradise, but I feel like all the cultural awareness and worldliness I have gained over the past two months in China, Lao, Cambodia and Vietnam have been blasted away in one short week of bucket cocktail, white sand beaches and tourist overload.

Soon we will escape to the west coast, which may or may not be different. Soon enough we will take a one-way visa run to Malaysia because we actually want to go to Malaysia rather than go there just to renew our visas so that we can come back to Thailand... I can see how this would be a good place for a relaxing tropical vacation. but I am here to learn.

Ha Noi se

Robinson Crusoe on Internet Island

It's raining outside, a monsoon, really. Poor drainage in Hanoi has resulted in the burial of the majority of the city's streets, knee deep in water, barring access to the sites on today's tourist itinerary. Hence we've sought shelter in an urban cave, visible only by the red and white "internet" sign protruding from the waterfall pouring around it. The urban jungle has sought refuge with us in our dry hideaway; Vietnamese kids passing the downpour screaming over the drone of the large fan and booming rainfall to each other as they discuss tactics and collaborate on their games of World of Warcraft. Creamy crooning Vietnamese pop singers (really dramatic stuff) permeate the windy interior of our Internet Hovel.

The rain has subsided for the moment and the other refugees from the weather have filtered out. I suppose its about time for us to do the same and seek a way off this island. We must find the Temple of Literature, which lies somewhere beyond the sea of poor drainage!

Vietnamese Wonder

We are currently in Ha Noi, waiting out a monsoon that is flooding the city. I am trying to ignore the ten-year old kid yelling next to me as he plays some sort of world of warcraft with his friends across the store. But that is not the point of this post. Prior to arriving here, we swung by Ninh Binh, Cat Ba Island, and Halong Bay. We finally got over our fear of scootering to take in northern Viet Nam's incredible scenery.

Vietnamese waterpark

In Nha Trang there is a waterpark on the beach, which kind of makes sense and kind of doesn't. For example, why would you go to a waterpark when the beach is right there, but on the other hand, maybe you are tired of swimming in salty water? Well, we were sold on the idea because we weren't too fond of the beach in Nha Trang. We missed the informality and affordability of Sihanoukville. We also wanted to go to the waterpark in order to see how the Vietnamese like their waterparks and because it cost a dollar. The experience was quite different from your average American waterpark.

First of all, no one was there. It was the emptiest waterpark I have ever seen. So it seemed like the whole 'waterpark on the beach' idea was not working out for them. Second of all, nothing was functioning. So these two items may have been related. The lazy river was not so lazy because there was no current and you had to paddle in order to move. The wave pool was still as glass. The diving board in another pool was missing. The zip line was not so zippy and even when loaded with two children stopped somewhere in the middle of the pool. There were about ten concession stands, but only one girl to staff them, who told us the only thing she sold was vanilla or chocolate ice cream. That's it. Another guy who may or may not have worked for the waterpark let us out through a gate to the restaurant next door to buy beers, but there were no lounge chairs because Vietnamese people don't like to get tan. It is an amazing phenomenon of 'you want what you don't have' that tourists sit on beach chairs in the sun in the heat of day and get tan, whereas locals cover every sqaure inch of swim with fabric or stay in the shade and then they pour from the city onto the beaches as soon as the sun goes down.

The one functioning thing at the waterpark were the slides. Well, two out of three were working. The one really fun inner tube slide that was very casually supervised. The five local children that were in the park were having a great time piling onto tubes and sliding down together. It made me wish the staff at American waterparks were more relaxed. Traveling in South America and Southeast Asia makes me wish the U.S. was less litigious because there are so many fun things we are prevented from doing because Americans are so concerned about getting sued. For example, yesterday we rented a scooter and scooted around the limestone karsts and rice paddies near Ninh Binh. In the U.S. I think you would need a license to do that. Today we ate pho on the street corner in Haiphong, but in the U.S. you would probably need some sort of permit to sell street food. Many sidewalks are tiled, which John with his civil engineering expertise says would not be permitted for handicap reasons. Children scoot around town standing between their parents' legs or squished between two adults, which would definitely not be allowed, but yet nothing bad really happens as a result of a lack of regulation. People trip. Traffic accidents happen. Tourists get food poisoning. But overall the scale tips in the favor of less paranoia.

Vietnamese Shasta

As some of you know, for the past two summers I have rented a houseboat on Lake Shasta, maintaining a long standing tradition of some Beavers. This summer I hope to make an appearance on the boat, even though I get back from Hong Kong several days before and classes start at Berkeley several days after. My desire to houseboat was reinvigorated today when John and I went on Mama Linh's Island Tour, off the coast of Nha Trang. We snorkeled, we drank bad wine while floating in inner tubes, we fruit partied, we drank beers, and we watched several fellow boaters from around the world pulled "on stage" for a post-lunch "song and dance entertainment programme." Fortunately for us, the guides considered United States and Canada "same same as" England. Somehow Australia was not so lucky.



Then Korea was selected, by far the best showing in the dance category:

Spain escaped on account of being "same same as" Italy, but the Italian guy who sang didn't seem to know the "Italian" song they were playing and the video is not worth uploading, but this Chinese girl was a natural:

But who could compete with Miss Viet Nam:



And of course, none of this would have been possible without the band:

I (heart) HCMC

Within moments of setting foot in Viet Nam we fell victim to a scam. We had heard that Vietnam could be crooked, but wanted to keep an open-mind, only to be pushed into a cab, taken for a $14 ride as his "meter" jumped from $1 to $3 before our eyes and continued rising according to some formula based on time and kilometer multiplied exponentially. When he shoved us out he tried to leave without giving us change to make an extra $4. He gave it to us and got out of there. We tried to get over our bitterness at our most expensive cab ride ever, walked down the street, found a hotel, got some dinner and took a stroll around the block. That's when things started to look familiar. Sure enough our bus had dropped us half a block from our chosen hotel. Of course we feel like idiots for not knowing where we were, but we were sleep deprived from involuntarily attended raves and our bootleg photocopy of Lonely Planet Viet Nam had very poor quality maps. We were naive enough to believe a cab driver would tell us we were already in the neighborhood where we said we wanted to be... I am fairly confident that in any other country we have visited the cab driver would have kindly let us know we were already here, but this guy preyed on our unfamiliarity, jacked his meter, then tried to steal our change, all while asking us where we were from and telling us how to say hello in Vietnamese. Not only was it cruel to us, but it was also cruel to Viet Nam since almost every traveler we met in Lao and Cambodia told us stories of getting ripped off here.

But, other than that embittering first experience, all of our other experiences in Saigon, officially known as Ho Chi Minh City, have been wonderful, with the exception of the three million motorbikes that threaten your life at every intersection. The pho is delicious and the iced Vietnamese coffee is plentiful. The War Remnants Museum, formerly known as the Museum of American War Crimes, was educational for me since I never really understood how the US came to be involved in Vietnam's civil war. In combination with "The Quiet American" and a brief history lesson, I think I have a better understanding of the looong history of occupation endured by the Vietnamese. I wonder if thirty years from now my children might go to a similar museum in Baghdad...

Today we went to Saigon's Chinatown, which looked to my eye like pretty much anywhere else in Saigon. I think Grant Street in San Francisco's Chinatown might be one the best looking tourist streets in any Chinatown worldwide. We tried to go to Shark Waterworld, an waterpark in Chinatown, but swimming trunks were banned! in order to go John would have had to buy either an overpriced speedo or some boxer-brief style lycra suits that cost more than the entrance fee . So we ate durian ice cream instead to escape the heat.

Tomorrow we are headed into the central highlands and then up the coast. When I was in A.P. English in high school, my teacher, who may or may not have been a veteran, was obsessed with Viet Nam. We read 'The Things They Carried' and watched 'Apocalypse Now.' Everyone had to choose an aspect of Vietnamese culture to illustrate with a visual aid. With the help of my dad, I created a three-dimensional topographical map of Vietnam out of clay, which I baked in our oven, painted according to elevation complete with rivers, and mounted on a piece of wood. I think it is still sitting in the basement of my parents' house and I remember it every time I see the silhouette of Viet Nam on countless t-shirts and signs here. American popular culture is obsessed with Viet Nam - how many movies are there about the war? This little country looms very large in our collection imagination. I am grateful to have the chance to replace some of the myth with experience.

In a Cosmic Sleep /

Between Cosmic Eras / On a Cosmic Ocean: In this manner the leaning Vishnu at the National Museum in Phnom Penh resides.

Cambodia's attractions include some of the best and worst accomplishments of humanity: Angkor Wat and the Khmer Rouge' s Choeng Ek Genocidal Center / S21 Prison. It is a little disconcerting when your guesthouse has daily showings of a National Geographic special on the "Mysteries of Angkor Wat" followed by documentaries on S21, in which former prison guards stoically conduct reenactments of their daily prisoner abuses, and The Killing Fields, a well-known documentary about the longan orchard where all but 7 of the detainees from S21 were taken to be killed. It is a little strange to walk out of National Museum, riding high on the cultural accomplishments of the Khmer people, only to fend off tuk tuk drivers who want to cut you a package deal on a ride to S21 and the killing fields. Cheap, cheap. People need to make a living and the world needs to not forget what happened to Cambodia, but the glib commercialization of such a tragedy is a little nauseating.

Angkor Wat is amazing though. I would not have guessed that the god-kings that built these temples had inherited Hinduism (and curry!) from Indian merchants blown across the Andaman Sea by monsoon winds. At Angkor, I learned some of the basics of Hindu mythology, like the creation story of the Churning of the Sea of Milk, an epic tug-of-war between the demons and the gods that released countless topless goddesses into the sky. Or so it seemed from the bas-reliefs. I was particularly impressed by the "elephant gates" that I thought would have elephant statues but were actually doorways with no stairs used for mounting elephants!

On our way to Siem Reap we were treated to Khmer hip hop karaoke videos. In the darkness outside we saw fields of black lights strung on top of vertical tarps, sometimes one in front of house, sometimes whole fields of them as far as the eye could see. After drinking bottled water in Lao that was labeled as "disinfected by UV light," we thought it might be for the collection and purification of rainwater. But we later learned that the locals use the elaborate set-up to catch crickets, which they like to deep-fry and eat. They also enjoy deep-fried large furry spiders. We were too chicken to try it out, but a Frenchman told us they take like liver. Ew.

Strangely enough all of the cats in Cambodia have tail deformities, which I was first worried was actually the result of sadistic cat torture. Apparently it is the result of southeast asian cat inbreeding? Some have normal tails, but alot of have truncated tails, some with tips that are perpendicular to the rest, some like corkscrews! and some with stubs. And of course, geckos are everywhere. I tried to catch an already tail-less gecko and failed because trying to catch geckos is like trying to shoot squirrels in Oregon Trail.

Despite visiting around seven places in Lao, we only managed to visit three in Cambodia (not including bus snack breaks): Phnom Penh, Siem Reap, and the coastal beach community named after the former king, Sihanoukville.

After untangling ourselves from the mess of moto drivers at the Sihanoukville bus station, we managed to get a ride to a certain guesthouse on the main drag off the beach, but it had just sold off its last room. The driver told us he had a guesthouse in mind and took us down the beach to another place, which was also full. No matter, he carted us across the street to Chiva's Shack and we were relieved to get a room since they seemed like a hot commodity. The room was only $4, but the room was also a plywood box with a fan in what was basically a corrugated metal garage, but still we were grateful. We got some Angkor beer, swam in the incredibly warm water, read some 'Count of Monte Cristo' on a beach chair, fended off girls hawking bracelets, who were determined to "thread" the 2mm long hairs off my legs by force. They tell you they are just going to show you what it is, then all the sudden the girl and her friend have you spread eagle for an hour... it was mortifying, but now my legs are *very* smooth!

There were some warning signs that Chiva's Shack was more than meets the eye: red bull cocktails sold in bucket-sized proportions, signs that said "Music all night" and "Don't start motos next to guest's rooms," and booty jams and strobe lights going during dinner, but we went to bed thinking the music would die down around midnight or at the latest 2am. Unfortunately ear plugs were no match for their sound system. We might have been more amicable to partying but hadn't gotten a good night's sleep in days on account of the ungodly screams that began at 3am from the pig slaughterhouse adjacent to our hotel in Siem Reap. Around 4am, I went out into Chiva's Shack to investigate, expecting the dj and his two friends as we had left them after dinner, but the place was packed with locals and foreigners swaying around on the dance floor, playing pool, scooting away on motos parked outside our door. I think I finally fell asleep around 5am, only to be woken up at 6am when the British girls next door settled in for the evening.

The next morning we switched hotels. We saw our British neighbors that night down the beach promoting "a really great 'full moon' party at Chiva's Shack" and did not take their flyer. Full Moon parties are a famous Thai invention that actually take place once a month on an island. This party took place every night in a shack and was hopefully not as fun as the real thing. Time will tell.

Adieu, Cambodge, adieu.

Hilarious Cambodian bar names

Unlike Vientiane, Phnom Penh seemed to have a healthy nightlife and more than that, Cambodians had a knack for witty / ridiculous bar names.

Here are my favorites:
Warehouse bar
Laundry bar
Le Tigre de papier
The Gym (Sports) bar
Heart of Darkness
Temple bar
Pontoon Lounge (on a boat)
Rock
Huxley's brave new world
Elsewhere
Green Vespa
A Lien Bar (misprint?)
Retox
Talking to a stranger
Freebird
Origami
Monsoon
Rainy Season
Mosquito

Mother of the King holiday

Did you know Cambodia is a kingdom? Today I went to the US Embassy in Phnom Penh to see if I could get some pages added to my passport. Obnoxious, I know, my passport is full. I blame Argentina for stamping it sixteen times. Upon entering Cambodia, I was taken aside and it was demonstrated to me that my passport lacked "Visa" pages. There are several pages for "Amendments" and other sorts of things, but not visas specifically and for that reason, the Cambodian officials decided to fine me $10. The fortress that is the US Embassy was easy to spot, but the guards let us know that it was closed for a holiday. Assuming it would be a US holiday (isn't the land around embassies considered territory of the countries they represent?), I asked which one it was since June 18 didn't ring a bell. Perhaps they celebrate Father's Day early and bureaucratically treat themselves to a day off? The guard mumbled that it was Mother of the King's birthday, which my brain interpreted as Martin Luther King's birthday and I said, Isn't that in January? but shrugged and walked away, figuring I would try the embassy in Saigon.

There was no indication that today was a Cambodian holiday until fireworks started going off over the river. I was alarmed by the first boom and asked a girl if she knew what it was about, but I couldn't understand her. I appreciated the fireworks as an early American Independence Day since we will probably be in Vietnam and not having fireworks on July 4. Then as we continued down the riverfront, we saw a sign on the National Museum commemorating the King's Mother's Birthday and it all came together.

Happy Birthday, Lady also known as the Queen!?

First Cambodian bus ride

Our first Cambodian bus ride was hopefully a unique experience. We bought tickets from an internet cafe on an island in the middle of the Mekong River and had little bargaining power. We were told we would take a bus to a boat to a minibus to the border to a VIP bus to Phnom Penh, but that is not what happened. We walked to the boat, boated, then waited for a half hour for our minibus to show up. Then we minibused to the border and then our minibus turned around and went back to Laos. Only later did we realize that our bag of precious souvenirs was on that bus... We checked out of Laos, walked to the Cambodia side, and found our new minibus, at which point our fellow tourists started wondering where our VIP bus was. It was revealed that there would be no VIP bus, alas nor any air conditioning nor on-bus karaoke, and we, four Malaysians, one Englishman, three Americans, one Slovakian, four Frenchmen, and one Korean, would be crammed into this minibus for the next eight hours. We thundered along, then stopped for lunch in the town of Kratie, whose French colonial architecture was spared from late 20th century bombing. For unexplained reasons our luggage was unstrapped from the roof and shoved into the vehicle, where it would ride under our feet for the next several hours. Maybe the driver knew it was going to rain. As we bumped along on a shortcut off the national highway, we heard a thud and then a dragging sound and asked the driver if he cared to stop and investigate. He seemed like he planned to ignore it and keep going. Turns out our spare tire had fallen off about 1000 feet ago, but it could have been worse. Eventually we stopped at a gas station in another small town for a bathroom and snack break. We ate some "larb"-flavored pocky pretzels and grass jelly drink. Then we learned would be '"consolidating" with another van that just showed up. Nineteen people and their luggage were crammed into a 14-seater van. John, the Korean guy and I were unfortunately the last ones to get in and eyed the last remaining seat. The Korean was advised to sit on the wheel hub. John got the seat and I got some backpacks to sit on. A small boy scrambled up onto a tower of backpacks between the driver and shotgun. Finally we arrived in Phnom Penh. Surprisingly we got our bag of souvenirs back today (for a $20 reward and minus several beloved items from China).

Like I said, hopefully a unique experience. Tomorrow we take our second Cambodian bus ride to Siem Reap.

Too Hot Spicey Soup

One of the best things about Southeast Asia, so far, is the soup. A not so special bowl of broth and noodles arrives at your table along with a plate of green beans, cabbage, mint, fresh chilies and a couple lime wedges. After shredding the veggies and mint, you drop them in the hot broth to cook. As they cook, you can attend to flavoring the broth.

At the center of the table sit a series of condiments: dried ground chili paste, Squid Brand Fish Sauce, vinegar, soy sauce, and a Tupperware bowl of fermented fish paste which smells exactly like it sounds. The soup by itself is rather bland. You flavor it by adding moderate amounts of the various sauces and pastes, mixing them in and tasting as you go. The first thing that typically goes in when I'm preparing my soup is the dried chili paste. Usually I eyeball the amount taking what at the time looks like a small dab with my soup spoon, about half a tablespoon. It doesn't look like much. The problem is that its usually really hot outside, usually, and the soup broth is just a Fahrenheit degree or so away from boiling, so your pores open up around your lips and your face and for men, under their mustaches, and the lime stimulates your salivary glands.

By the time you've taken two sups or so the heat starts to get to you. The steam rises from teh broth further opening your pores, making your eyes water a little. Its hard to tell if its the spice of the chili or the heat of the broth, but your tongue and lips erupt in excruciating pain. By the third or fourth sup or so, your eyes begin to water, eventually to the point that your vision is slightly blurred. The synergy of the open pore sweating of your entire face and the chili oil getting deep into the heat expanding pores of your lips and the vermillion border under your mustache makes each bite a very small triumph of will. But its damn tasty...

...especially with the fermented fish paste.

Second and third Lao bus rides

Changing buses has become the popular theme for our recent Lao bus rides. The first time it happened it seemed like our bus driver called the bus ahead and was like, Hey there are not alot of people on my bus and you are going to Vientiane too, so why don't you take them? And the other bus driver said, Ok, and waited by the side of the road for us to catch up. So we consolidated, to achieve a more scrupulous use of non-renewable resources. Then we arrived in Vang Vieng, tubing capital of Laos, and our new bus driver did not realize that four of us had hoped to continue on to Vientiane. He said, Vang Vieng. We said, Vientiane, and so on. Finally he convinced another bus driver to take us to Vientiane, but we had to squish five across the back with another lady and her chickens. There is something to be said for a capital city of 200,000 people... but now is not the time.

Lao bus ride bathroom breaks consistently entail stopping at random points along the road where people go to do their business in the shrubbery. Now I am no longer surprised.

Our third Lao bus ride from Vientiane to Savannakhet was going fine until our bus driver decided not to continue to Savannakhet. I don't know where we were, at some bus station in some town in Southern Laos, and he indicated that we and our stuff should get on the bus next door. We hauled our backpacks across, got in, and saw that the aisle was filled with two motorcycles and every seat was occupied except for two seat next to an armoire blocking the aisle in the back. The last seats were filled with suitcases and boxes and an oscillating fan - apparently someone was moving via the bus. People standing in the remaining aisle space began staking their claims on plastic stools and space to set them. We realized we were either going to be straddling motorcycles on the last two hours of our bus journey or we were going to get those last two seats next to the furniture. John opted to crawl in through the window from the outside. Because I was wearing a dress, I was not sure this was the best way to prevent Lao giggles. So I stepped up onto the motorcycle seat, stepped over an orange-robed monk's seat back and landed safely in my chair. This bus was decked out with oscillating ceiling fans and flourescent lights, but both of these were blocked for us by the armoire... we bought some beerlao from the lady selling her goods outside the window and eventually arrived in Savannakhet.

Our bus ride today from Savannakhet to Pakse involved no bus switching, armoires, or motorcycles, but it did involve jungle bathroom breaks and chickens. Water buffalo proliferated in the rice paddies as we continued south along the Mekong. We have seen Thailand three times now across the river, but we won't be going there for awhile.

First comes Cambodia: after many conflicting reports, we finally confirmed that we can get a visa at the border with Laos. Second comes Vietnam. Third comes Thailand after a cheap cheap flight from Hanoi to Bangkok. Fourth comes Malaysia. Things are shaping up.

Baguettes, Bidets, and Smelly Cheese

During the end of the 19th century, while the rest of Europe was busy tending/losing their colonies in the America's, the French were busy sending explorers to the East, into the areas now occupied by Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. France has long lost its holdings in this area but has left a strong cultural legacy in its wake. French culture has seamlessly entrenched itself into the daily life of Laos, influencing its food, architecture, and toilet habits. Some things I've noted so far:

• Baguettes and sandwiches.: They're everywhere. I think that the Laotions eat more baguettes than the French do... and they're usually pretty good baguettes. Lao sandwiches are usually topped with weird cured pork, pickled vegetables, spicy stuff, cheese (I haven't actually yet encountered smelly cheese), and PATE'. Pate', you know the French stuff which vaguely resembles dog food that most American's would not touch with a ten foot pole? Yea that stuff.

• Architecture: French architecture is decaying, but well, in most major Lao towns. Graceful two story tall concrete buildings with wooden shutters and Portuguese tile grace most of the squares and waterfronts we've visited. Now they sit where they were built, slowly falling apart, rust and mold tarnishing their faces, and hint at what an exotic, tropical France may have looked like.

• Coffee, Cafes and Restaurants with "Le and Aux" in their title: In reality, this stuff is probably for the tourists...

• Motor Scooters: Well they aren't Vespas, but people here cruise around on 100cc motor scooters... everywhere. They even bring them on the bus.

• Bidets: The bidet is a low slung porcelain fixture which looks like a cross between a sink and a toilet used for washing oneself after using the loo. To roughly 65 million people in the world, the Bidet is more civilized than using sanitary paper. Laos doesn't have bidets, per se. Most toilets in Laos come equipped with a spray nozzle not unlike the one in most American kitchen sinks built into the wall next to the toilet.

• French People: I was in a cafe in Vientiene and a family, who I assumed to be the propieters walked in. The unit consisted of a grizzled undoubtedly French older man, a young Lao woman and her daughter. The older French man wore the wrinkled visage of someone who had been burnt by a life in the jungle.
  

Notorious

We stopped by a French/Lao bookstore/exchange tonight and picked up D.H. Lawrence's 'The Gipsy and the Virgin' and Daniel Defoe's 'Robinson Crusoe' and saw that they were showing a movi called 'Notorious' for free upstairs at 7pm. We took advantage of nearby happy hours drinking Laos cocktails made from laos laos spirits derived from sticky rice. Then we headed back, not knowing whether to expect some obscure French film, or some old murder mystery gangster sort of film, or a film about Notorious BIG. We went upstairs and asked a girl where she was from and if she knew what the movie was about, and it turns out, of all the films in the world, this bookstore was showing the dramatic interpretation of Chris Wallace's life. The other couple there was actually from Brooklyn and at first thought they were going to be seeing the Hitchcock film, but were equally excited to see the movie that was filmed in their old neighborhood. At the end of the film, the Laos staff turned the light back on, I hadn't realized Biggie and Tupac were friends (also, by the way, did you know Tupac was named after the last Incan king that stood up to the Spanish and was finally defeated in the jungle of Peru? Tupac's mother was a black panther!) and I asked the Irish girl if people were really into Biggie and Tupac when they died ten years ago, she looked at me with a tear drying on her cheek and said she had listened to them when she was in high school... the day Tupac died people refused to go to class and sang in the hallways at my highschool. Fascinating to see this movie here in Luang Prabang, Laos, of all places.

Our first Lao bus ride

Our first Lao bus ride was VIP because there was no other option from Luang Nam Tha to Luang Prabang today. Without anything with which to compare it, VIP seems to include on-bus karaoke to sing along with all your favorite Lao hits (including Creedence Clearwater Revival covers!) while the bus swings around blind turns and slams over potholes.

I had read that Laos was one of the poorest countries in the world, but I did not expect villagers to build their homes right next to the highway. Our first Lao bus ride was like a nine-hour long Unicef commercial, with little babies in varying degrees of nakedness bathing eating playing next to the road or sitting in the dirt, watched over by older siblings and grandmas in traditional clothing in front of thatch roof single story homes while pigs, dogs, chickens, and turklets ran amuck.

This first Lao bus ride confirmed that motion sickness is a world-wide phenomenon. Growing up in a family where everyone can read in cars, I did not realize how common motion sickness is. In South America and in Asia, at least in China and Laos, people seem to have a hard time keeping it down on the bus. This bus ride was particularly windy, but the lady in the seat behind me was in a near constant state of puking. John had to pick his backpack up off the floor...

The other noteworthy thing that happened on this first Lao bus ride was a conversation between John and a nice young Lao man on his way to Luang Prabang to learn English. They exchanged pleasantries about Laos, then the man sprung a question that has not been asked of us in our four months of traveling. He asked, what is your religion? John answered that he had been raised Catholic, but the man did not understand, so John said, Christian. The young man answered with something bordering on joy/relief that he was also Christian and that last night he had had a dream that he had met another Christian who had given him a hat and mittens. He said maybe his god was telling him he would meet John today... after that John didn't really know what to say, nor did the other man, who drifted off to talk to a French lady from New Zealand who was planning to teach English at a wat...

That sums up the goings-on of our first Lao bus ride.

Luang Prabang is very pretty, looks like some nice French colonial architecture even in the dark, and I have spied a few baguettes here and there.

"Trekking"

What is the difference between trekking and hiking or backpacking? I do not know. Hiking seems to be something you do for the day and it becomes backpacking when you stay out overnight. Based on our experience today, trekking seems to entail being lead around the jungle for the day by three local teenagers with machetes on a barely discernible trail and it requires a bamboo walking stick to stay on your feet. This "trek" was advertised as an opportunity to see local ethnic tribespeoples' way of life. John and I weren't that interested in the 'human zoo' aspect of the tour, but as it turned out, it only entailed being led through the forest by a young kid wearing flip flops and whacking at vegetation with a machete. Apparently he and his no-socks-and-dress-shoes-wearing friend who brought up the rear were the local tribespeople? We "trekked" for about six hours with two Korean girls and an Israeli couple, up and down, slipping and sliding and falling, while our guides traipsed along and hardly broke a sweat. After we ate a buffet of local Laos cuisine with our fingers off and wads of sticky rice off of a table of banana leaves laid on the ground, the Israeli man asked us if there are trekking opportunities in the United States and I didn't really know what to say. People, myself included, hike and backpack in the US, but what defines trekking exactly? Maybe trekking is to hiking as torches are to flashlights or some other example of two words for the same thing; I am always really confuesed when I read or hear that I need to bring a "torch" with me somewhere, which doesn't happen all that often. In conclusion, we did not see any tigers and perhaps that is a good thing, but we didn't see much wildlife at all. I am starting to realize that Costa Rica is an extremely unique place where monkeys howl and throw poop at you and wild boars, giant guinea pigs, crocodiles, birds, and butterflies all wander around on your ordinary everyday hike (and in Costa Rica they never call it trekking). After study abroad in Central America, I figured jungles across the world teamed with wildlife, but based on my jungle experiences in Peru and Laos, that is apparently not the case! I hear Ecuador might also team with wildlife, but I am not sure if or when I will be able to verify that rumor.

Tomorrow we will try to catch a bus down to Luang Prabang. I think they eat baguettes there.

Escape from the Gulag!

Dear readers, we are finally free of China's ban on blogspot! Upon arriving in Beijing where we last left you, we found that blogspot had been blocked. We thought perhaps it was blocked only in the capital, but when we saw that it was blocked in Pingyao and Xi'an and so on, we assumed China was cutting back on people's freedoms with the approaching twenty year anniversary of Tianemen Square (June 5). The worst part was that we couldn't post to say we couldn't post! We didn't stick around to see when our right to blog might be restored. Despite its governmental shortcomings, Laos does not seem to have a problem with blogging.

I wrote this "Summary of our Chinese Travels" post in my head on a windy, bumpy, sleepless sleeper-bus from Zhongdian to Kunming a few days ago. Since we last wrote, this is what we have been doing in the lonely absence of our blog:

• In Beijing, we saw older people waltzing to Christmas songs on our walk from the bus station to the hostel. People often whistled Christmas songs in May in this Buddhist/atheist country. Our hostel was located in one of the many hutong alleyways that have mostly been demolished to make way for 10-lane avenues. There are so many sights in Beijing you could stay for weeks. We saw a handful of famous ones, all very impressive.
  

• We celebrated my 28th birthday in Pingyao, an ancient walled city, a tourist shadow of its former thriving village self. All the authentic action has moved outside the historic gates and inside people hawk glass jade bracelets and dubious antiques. John rented the kitteh from the shop next door by writing down the characters for "girlfriend" "birthday" "cat" "one hour," which made it an exceptionally memorable birthday. I love that the word for cat in Mandarin is "mao."
  

• In Xi'an, we ate delicious Muslim mutton soup with bread crumbled in it, then we fought our way through armies of tourists to see the terra cotta warriors. We were also offered a kitteh for free, but the logistics of traveling with a xiao mao boggled our minds.
  

• Rather than petting pandas in Chengdu and floating down the Yangtze in Chongqing, we got off the beaten path in Zhengzhou and for lack of English signage and Hostelling Internationals, we could not find a place to stay. We looked dejected enough that a girl with a pocket translator offered to help and lead us to a nearby hotel and got us a room, which we were promptly thrown out of for reasons that could not be fully explained with our pocket mandarin - english dictionary. We think no foreigners were allowed to stay in the hotel, but still don't know why we were allowed into a room in the first place... eventually we found a new hotel on our own. The whole point of going to Zhengzhou was the Shaolin temple, birthplace of Chinese kung fu, home of Shaolin shadowboxing and the Wutang sword-style (if what you say is true, the shaolin and the wutang could be dangerous).We saw several of the kung fu animal style (listed in the poll in the right side bar) in fist-flying action.
  

• Our next stop was Wuhan, which we imagined might be what Shanghai was like twenty years ago, with a Bund that was not completely under construction and concession-era architecture falling into ruin, but we were itching to get a taste of the Chinese pastoral.
  

• We did not quite find idyllic countryside in Fenghuang, which was very pretty by day with narrow alleys and houses supported by stilts hanging over the river, but discordantly thumping with booty jams by night. The crush of the stinky-tofu-eating tourist hoardes in town for a dragon boat racing holiday also made it difficult to soak up the scenery.
  

• Dehang finally satisfied our search for small village life with the added bonus of some amazing hikes through limestone karsts and rice paddy-covered landscapes.

• We caught a scenic train ride up to Yunnan province only to see more rural Chinese tourist disneyfication in Dali and Lijiang, where it was hard to see the historic architecture underneath all the tourist schlock and people putting on ethnic clothing and posing for photographs. Unlike in South America, the majority of tourists in China are Chinese and they seemed to be shameless consumers of whatever was on sale, such as local ethnic minorities' dignity.
  

• Thankfully, the tourist hoardes did not make it all the way up the Himalayan foothills to Zhongdian, also known as Gyalthang to Tibetans, also known as Shangri-La to the Chinese tourist bureau. We sampled yak burger and yak yogurt and gaped at the ruins of what used to be the most important lamasery in southwest Tibet, which had been trashed by overly enthusiastic Red Guards in the cultural revolution and is still being slowly restored...
  

We are now inadvertently following in the footsteps of Edward Gargan as he flowed with the Mekong from its headwaters in Tibet to its delta in Vietnam. 'A River's Tale' is a very good read, but I got a little nervous holding it in China where it is undoubtedly banned.

After a minor scuffle with the Chinese officials over some "suspicious" creases in John's passport, we made a run for Laos. We are now in Luang Nam Tha and just enjoyed our first $4 steak, coconut milk soup, and lemon-mint drink. Tomorrow we are hoping to see some tigers (from a distance) in the neighboring jungle. Hopefully we will now return to our regularly scheduled blog posting.

China my china, i've wandered around and you're still here

The mist, clinging to the bambooed hills changed into a rain as we descended newly tunneled roads to China's border with Laos. With China at our backs my memories will be bitter sweet. China is a beautiful country, and its people are among the most friendly and helpful I've encountered on the planet. There was never a time when, looking lost and defeated, that someone didn't help us out. The landscape, punctured by limestone kartsts or blanketed by amoebic rice paddies, is otherwordly. I am envious of the smoothness of China's rail, and how easy travel is. Perhaps more Americans would actually see America if our rail compared to taht of China's. China has a sense of humor, too. Some of the funniest one liners I've seen in my life have been derived from mistranslated Engrish. (Actually, China does have a standup scene which seemed to be based around its musical traditions and opera... but I couldn't understand the jokes... and Jackie Chan can be a pretty funny dude, but he doesn't count, he's Cantonese.)

But China has a dark side that we butted up against periodically on our trip. The Cultural Revolution, begun in 1966 was a period of social upheaval. Mao wanted to purge the Four Olds: Old Customs, Old Culture, Old Habits, and Old Ideas. Intellectuals were sent to farms, books and musical instruments were burned, and temples were raized. China has moved on, from this philosophy, but the vestiges of the thought that led to the Cultural Revolution still remain and influence China's decisions.

The last province Shannon and I visited was the Yunnan province. The Yunnan province is unique in that it is host to many minority cultures in China, each with unique religion, architecture and language. While we were traveling in the province we began to read a book given to me be my mother's friend: The Rivers Tale by Edward Gargan which detailed his trip down the Mekong River from its source in Tibet. Gargan's trip happened to begin in the Yunnan Province and his interviews with people along the way who lived through the Cultural Revolution changed my perception of the vast country a bit. If you're traveling in China or Southeast Asia, I highly recommend this book. It has added a new layer of meaning into my travels.

China is still out to stifle the Four Olds. The government has little care for old architecture, music, and religion unless it serves the purpose of lining the pockets of communist Beuracrats. Much historic architecture has been destroyed in China to make way for drab high rise apartments. The Yunnan province is a remarkable example of China's attitude towards the old. Because they are so far from Beijing, the old cities of Lijian and Dali managed to escape the wrecking ball however what exists of them now looks more like shopping malls or Disneyland than anything of historic significance. We had the privelage, while in Lijian, to see the Naxi Orchestra. This orchestra is composed of ancient men playing 1000 year old musical scores on ancient instruments. The performance was great, except for the thumping bass of techno music filtering through from nightclubs which have taken up residence across the street. We made our way south of Lijian to the city of Zhongdian (dubbed Shangri-La by a local beurocrat). Zhongdian used to be part of Tibet and houses one of the priniciple Tibetan monastaries. As we ascended the stairs to the top of the hill in which the monastary is perched, the scars of the Cultural Revolution become apparent as the monastaries main building still lies in a heap of rubble. Though the Lamas are currently in the process of rebuilding this intimates the heavy role China is playing in modern Buddhist practice. Gargan speaks a lot about this.

Daddy! Daddy!

After a mad dash to our train bound for Qindao, Shannon and I went to our seperate bunks. The ticket vendor had made a mistake and put us in beds that were in rows 20 and 21, but were 3 cars away from each other. After stowing my bag under the bottom bunk, I took stock of my bunkmates. The group that stood out was a grandparent pair and their little grandaughter who was wailing her eyes out. The train hadn't yet started moving and her father was on the station landing trying to console her. I decided to sit back in my bunk and observe this touching scene for a moment when in the bunk below me a man started singing. I thought to myself "how cute, her uncle or someone is singing to her to calm her down". I decided to peek down to get a glimpse of the crooner: he had earphones in and was singing to drown out the little girls sobbing.

Qingdao, also known as Tsingtao

After another long train ride during which we experienced the spoiled bratty downside to the one-child policy, we have arrived in Qingdao, former German concession and home of one of China's most famous exports. Who knew Tsingtao Brewery was started up by Germans in China? Who knew Tsingtao is actually pronounced "Ching Dao"? Not me. We were excited to sit on the No. 1 Beach in this seaside town, but it is raaaining. We are staying in an old astronomical observatory. Aside from this rain, things are good.

Update: In Qingdao many small restaurants and dumpling-erias have kegs of Tsingtao out front from which you can purchase a plastic grocery bag of beer to take away with you. We decided to experience this side of Qingdao culture, but due to our lack of Mandarin skills, we were given 2.5 kilograms of beer with several straws. When the man pointed to 2.5 on the hanging scale they use to weigh the bag as it fills from the tap, I didnt really think it through. Who knows how muh 2.5 pounds of beer really is? Then with a giant bag of beer in hand, I realized that it was 2.5 kilograms, which equals at least 5 pounds, I think, and seemed like at least 2 liters. All this beer cost 7 yuan or about 1 dollar.

Tomorrow we head to the northern capital, Beijing.

Shanghai'd

No, we have not been forced into pirate slavery, but we are in Shanghai.

For the past couple of days we have been in Hangzhou, famed for the most famous West Lake in China. Apparently even Marco Polo thought this lake was something to write home about. The hands down highlight of yesterday was the Yellow Dragon Cave Park on the western shore of the lake. We climbed the ridge in search of the dragon, but only found some caves.

We also went to Pizza Hut because I was already sort of tired of Chinese food. Pizza Hut is very classy here and the pizza toppings, such as seafood fruit salad, teriyaki with bonito flakes, and curry chicken with pineapple, undeniably cater to regional palates. I imagine a person from Hangzhou who visited a Pizza Hut in the US would come away rather disappointed.

We will post more about Shanghai after we actually see Shanghai.

Update: Sadly, Shanghai was a little disappointing - it didn't really look like Japanese-occupied Shanghai as seen in Lust/Caution... and everything is under construction for the World Expo 2010. We ate some good food though - hand pulled noodles and something that may or may not have been Korean. We ate a wide variety of buns and dumplings. We saw, but did not eat, stir-fried toothpicked sweet and sour baby chickens. We saw some acrobats. We saw the Chinese space needle. Now we have officially been Shanghai'd.