A Bit of History

Yesterday I hired a guide and it was a really good move!  He took me to this little alleyway street food place for lunch and it was the best thing I've had to eat for a very long time!  30,000 vnd, which included ice tea.  So I guess that's about $1.50.

The eating was after a fairly greuling tour of the so-called "Hanoi Hilton" which was actually a horrible French prison built back in the late 1800s.  There's only a little bit left, but it was enough.  The French were undoubtely some of the worst colonists ever, and that's a tough competition to win.  My guide told me they killed something like 2 million Vietnamese by starvation - exporting nearly all of the rice, back before the war.

The photo below shows how the prisoners were kept - shacked by one ankle all day long.  Except for the really uppity ones.  They were kept in isolation and shacked by both ankles.  

I don't know about you, but I'd never encountered an actual guillotine before!  Holy shit.  It's one thing to read Tale of Two Cities - quite another to see one in person.  There's a photo there of three faces with baskets around them....at first I didn't know what I was seeing.  Then I read the caption and realized these were just heads - severed from political activists and put out on display to discourage the locals from rebelling.  Didn't work.

The museum focused much more on the French than the Americans, but there were photos of the captured pilots.  Supposedly they were treated relatively humanely.   At least compared to the Vietnamese prisoners of the French.    

After the Hanoi Hilton we walked over to the Women's Museum and I got another dose of Vietnamese reality.  Basically the women are the backbone of the country.  The do most of the hard physical labor it seems, so that the menfolk have time for alcoholism and gambling.  

So this is what a communist mother goddess looks like, apparently.  

There was one video that had interviews of all these different street vendors - all women - who have to come into Hanoi and work from 3:30am to 7pm trying to sell shit on the streets to make enough to bring home.  They only get to see their families once every few weeks.  It's really hard and cruel and made me think twice about ever haggling with them - store keepers yes!  But not these women who carry two baskets hanging from a pole across their shoulders.

I think my favorite was all the propaganda posters depticting women.  They couldn't have kicked our asses (nd the French) without the women totally making it happen.

And there was something about this photo I found very compelling.  You rarely see these women smiling - at least not in the war photos.  Or maybe I'm just a sucker for a pretty girl holdig a machine gun?

The woman's museum also featured many many displays of tribal costumes and lots of jewelry.  Very impressive but there were 6 or 7 floors - and the stairways were NOT airconditioned, so by the end I was sadly losing interest in that really cool stuff that goes on when people aren't trying to kill the Vietnamese.

And finally, sitting on the tiny plastic stools,  lunch....

                            

Nola Cafe

Last night I came across the trippiest place - the entrance was virtually a hole in the wall!  Not really, but it was a very funky looking doorway to a very long cave like tunnel.  I'd read about it on TripAdvisor otherwise there's np way in hell I'd have seen it, let alone thought to enter.

I'd actually come during the day and took a few photos, but at night it was a whole different animal!

The long rough passage leads back to a warren of rooms going up 5 or 6 stories, some of them open air patios.  It looked very old French and somehow hipster Vietnamese (this was the only hipster-esque thing I've seen in Hanoi).  

Aside from a few young staff who seemed to speak no English, I was the only one there...it felt so spooky!  What was this place?!  It had so many rooms...I think it could host about 100 patrons.  Where were they?

Anyway, I had an avocado mango lassi and soaked up the vibes.  I just wished Krista was there to experience it.

I was glad I'd found this place, even though I got hopelessly lost on the way back to my room.  I ended up taking a cyclo - a bicycle taxi, which was a real treat anyway.

Photos!

I have so many photos now, I finally started putting them up on Flickr:  https://www.flickr.com/photos/robbibaba/sets/72157653543337455

 Here's a link to my Hanoi set.

And here is a teaser....

First day in Hanoi

I'm not sick.  I can say that much.

But I'm not feeling too great.  I think it's pretty much standard, jetting to the other side of the planet with very little sleep and stepping into a rather hot, muggy and very chaotic environment.  My belly feels weird.

So I'm hiding in my room for a bit.  

I got scammed today.  I went out to see the famed water puppet show, which was pretty cool.  On the way back I stopped to take a photo, or maybe a video of this crazy intersection with a jillion scooters, bicycle taxis, buses and pedestrians all sorting it out. All of a sudden this kid runs up to me kind of shouting and pointing at my flip flop.  It might have been on fire or something, the way he was acting.  Before I know what's happening he's got it off me and is putting super glue or something on the bottom and slapping a piece of rubber on to "improve" it.  Then cutting away the excess with a sharp and scary looking knifeOnce he'd done one side I had to let him do the other.  He demanded 300,000 vnd for the job.  I gave him 200,000 (about $10) which was still a rip off.  I just walked away while he yelled at me!

Worst of all, the flip flops aren't as comfortable now.   I guess they'll last a lot longer, but it kind of shook me up.

It's hot and muggy here but not nearly as bad as I expected.  Nor is crossing the street as bad as rumor has it.  The architecture here in the old quarter is amazing- all tall and skinny buildings, some modern and very fancy and some ancient and ruinous.  And the streets go every which way!  

I think I'll go out again soon.  The sun is down and the daytime stools will be all rolled up by now.  I was out last night but way too tired to enjoy it.  I needed to eat and couldn't find restaurants!  Not in this neighborhood.  Just tiny stools on the street with some kind of noodle soup on offer.  Not so good for a vegetarian....

Not that many westerners about either.  Not like in Chiang Mai at all!  Which in some ways is very cool. This isn't such a tourist ghetto.  But a little daunting on first arrival.

And here's the iconic family on a scooter shot.  Wouldn't be SE Asia without that!

Gearing up for SE Asia 2015

Well, I'm off again in just a few weeks!  I've set up a 7-day EFT training at a place called the Sanctuary on Koh Phangan in Thailand.  My yoga teacher has been doing month long workshops there for the past few years and it sounds nice!

Of course, it's totally off-season and may be hotter than hell in SE Asia.  And just to make sure I get enough hellish heat, I've decided to head up to Hanoi for a few days before the workshop.  I've never been to Vietnam, and this 1000 year old city looks amazing - heat or no.

I'm looking forward to bumming around the Old Quarter, checking out Vietnam's famous coffee and just soaking up the exhaust fumes from 12,000 scooters a minute going by.  Oh yeah, and risking my life crossing every street.

Here's a picture just to get started of the magical Ha Long Bay (which I probably won't have time to visit....but might cram into my insanely short visit).

I may be crazy, but I'm almost excited at the prospect of cramming into my little coach seat on China Airlines for the 14 hour flight to Taipai and then the 5 hour flight to Bankok and then the 1 hour flight to Hanoi.  Counting all the layovers I'm looking at maybe 26 hours from when I leave home to my nice hotel in the Old Quarter!  Okay, I am crazy.  And it's going to be so worth it!

Here's nearly ONE MONTH of travel condensed into 13 minutes.  Please watch it full screen if you can!

One Week Home

It's been a week now since the airport bus dropped me off outside the darkened fairgrounds in the sub-freezing night.  I'd been warned that we were having a tremendous cold snap, but how does one prepare after a month away in the tropics?

For several nights I woke up very confused, not knowing where I was.  Even last night, waking up to go pee, it took me awhile to realize I was back home in California.  It really is an amazing thing to be standing on the other side of the planet one day and back the next.

People ask me how my trip was, hoping perhaps to get a short, satisfying answer.  Ha!  I'm more likely to come after them with my iPad full of photographs and long stories, now oft repeated.  I should just tell them to read this blog if they are really interested.  Or just say "fantastic!". 

Before I ever traveled overseas, I asked my friend Susan what the big deal was.  She'd take off for three or four weeks at least once a year.  She was the first person I knew who'd been to Thailand.  She told me that the memories from travel are different--far more rich and dense with experience.  So true.

It was a little harder this time to be traveling solo.  There's such a natural desire to turn to one's friend and say "Whoa!  Look at that!".....at least for me.  I got to do a bit of that with strangers, fellow travelers also having their minds blown.  But I'm very grateful to have been able to share my trip with you, dear reader. 

Traveling across the planet to places of incredible beauty, but where local people are so humble, or even poor--it made me so aware of my good fortune, and so grateful for the experience.

Random Images and Thoughts

I'm still at Miracle Springs and will stay one more night at Steve's dome.  It was pretty damn cold last night!  I had on everything I brought plus some of Steve's clothes, but it was unusually chilly I guess.

On the ride back to his place the stars were about as bright as I've ever seen them.  We just stood out and stared up at them for quite a while.

Tomorrow I'm breaking camp and heading by bus further north to Nong Khai, which is right on the border with Laos.  It sounds like a charming little town and I'm happy to get to explore it a bit.  I'll spend the night there and zip down on Wednesday to catch my plane back to Bangkok.  Alas, I'm looking at an 8 hour layover.  Steve thinks I should grab a taxi and go have fun in Bangkok!  

At the least I can get one last massage at the airport before my long flight home.

So here are some random photos for you, dear reader....

Thai filling station.  Actually same in Cambodia, though the sign is a bit unusual.  

Another building project underway here.  I like the shapes!

A fairly prosperous farmstead outside Seam Reap in Cambodia.  I saw a lot of big hay stacks and many water buffalo wallowing in the little ponds or streams.  It was incredibly hard to get a good shot from the bouncing, careening tuk tuk though.  

This was flying in to Udon Thani.  So much farm land, not just here but the whole flight, and most or all of it obviously cultivated by small farmers.  So much more productive--and beautiful--then massive corporate holdings.  This picture needs major Photoshopping, but believe me when I say it was really lovely.

Can't remember if I posted this already.  The Khmer (and Hindus) really celebrate the whole male female thing.  I saw these things in pretty much every temple, but this was the only one with any detail left!  

So one of the great things to come out this epic battle between the gods and demons was the birth of the Apsaras--sort of celestial dancers.  I don't pretend to know jack about this, but it was a really big deal for the Khmer.  Pretty much all of the temples had a big Apsara dancing hall where specially trained women would do the sacred dances.  This is the only real link back to that culture, 1000 years earlier.  There are still Apsara dancers and nightly shows in Seam Reap.  I ducked into one, but it was too crowded for me at that moment, so I missed out.

More Apsara dancers

Just another few days and I'll be home.  Back to my wonderful family, satisfying work and the craziness of the US at holiday time.  I feel extraordinarily grateful to be on this trip and to be able to share it with you!

At Steve's Domicile

It's pretty amazing being here. Steve is a really excellent photographer and he caught the dome in the best possible light.  But even the best photos don't convey the presence of a place.

So here are some of my non-photoshopped photos of the place...

Here's the fish pond right off of the living room, and the welcoming alcove for the front door.

There are no glass windows here, just screens (ah, to live where it's never cold!).  Alas, rats from the mango orchard have breeched all the screens.  They seem to use Steve's place as a kind of club ho use.

The front door from inside the house.  Note the machete and the Namaste banner (from Mandala Arts).

The portal to Steve's bedroom off the kitchen.  He has a little propane stove that swings out from under the counter there on the right.

The doorway to the bathroom.  There's the shower in the background.  And one of Deva Luna's stickers there on the fridge!

The stairs up to the covered balcony...

The view from the top!  That's a sweet little lake in the background, complete with lotus flowers.  And those are mango trees.  This is all in the middle of a mango/rubber tree farm.

The operating principle here seems to be fun.  And relaxing.  I've had a very mellow day after so much travelling.  At times the only sounds are wind in the trees, way off dogs barking, roosters crowing and occasional sounds of scooters or tractors in the distance.

North Again to Udon Thani and Miracle Springs

So I'm on a bumpy old Thai bus out of Udon Thani, way up north near the Lao border.  Hopefully on my way to someplace called Ban Dung (pronounced Baan Doong) where my pal Steve Areen will come and collect me (once I figure out a way to call him).  

I left horrible Klong Kloi beach and awful Koh Chang yesterday (funny it doesn't look horrible, does it?) travelling by mini-bus across on the ferry and then on up to the airport in Bangkok.

 I got a nice clean room near the airport with aircon and actual furniture and a warm shower!  Heaven.  No stream of fire ants crossing my mattress to attack my bags.  But up at 5am to make my early flight.  Happily I was able to trade in my flight from Trat for this one and it only cost me another $50 or so to make this sojourn  north.

It was really a toss up beteen visiting Steve way out in the Issan boonies, or going to the quaint Lao town of Luang Prabong.  I've wanted to visit LP for many years, but after travelling solo for weeks, it will be great to be with a friend, especially one as interesting and funny as Steve.  

I am a bit nervous about this leg of the trip however.  I'm the only farang on the bus and WAY off the tourist trail here.  I have no idea where we are, but we keep stopping to take on and let off passengers.  I'm just trusting the driver will let me know when to get off and that I will indeed get off at the right place.  Trust.

Writing later:  that bus trip took about an hour and it was pretty clear where to get off, but I was wrong about Steve meeting me there. I was supposed to call him and I know this sounds lame but I couldn't figure out how to use the pay phone!  I tried a bunch of times but kept getting a message in Thai.  No luck.  Finally some people at the copy shop next to the pay phone sort of adopted me.  At one point there were six or seven of them trying to figure out what the hell was my problem.  When they finally got that I just needed to call someone locally a man went in and dialed the store phone...and got Steve on the line!  

Most of the time I've travelled in Thailand I'm on a tourist route.  You can get wifi in almost any cafe or restaurant, people speak at least some English.  Safe to say that VERY FEW farang come through Ban Dung, and those who do probably know what they're about.  For me it was a powerful opportunity to feel how kind and compassionate Thai people can be.  

Turned out I needed to get on another bus to go another half an hour.  I went back to the bus station and three more Thai people helped me (in a very respectful but determined way).  They gave very clear instructions to the bus driver where to let me off!

And there was Steve waiting for me and now I'm here at his Thai dome home.  One of the coolest places I've ever been in.  His house is near a small lake in a mango orchard.  I'll put up some photos in my next post.  

Down the road a ways is Miracle Springs, owned by Hajjar and Lumiyai.  Hajjar is Steve's sister's husband's brother.  I think.  There are also some really cool wwoofers from Finland, Australia, and the US.  Hajjar Gibran is a distant cousin of the great Lebanese poet Kahlil Gibran, author of The Prophet.  Hajjar wrote Return of the Prophet a few years ago, based on channelled conversations with Kahlil!  He also invented the dome building method that Steve used for his famous house.

Apparently Steve's dome house really has become famous.  It's been written up in print magazines all over the world and of course in lots of internet blogs and websites.  He's been getting love letters from women all over the place!

Did I mention there are rubber tree plantations here?

On The Road to Koh Chang

SWell the mini-van ride down to the Poi Pet border crossing was a breeze.  The damn thing was almost an hour late, but whatever.  I had a cozy spot in the back seat and was very comfy.

That sure changed once we got to Poi Pet.  The transport service dumped us off and pointed at immigration, a little ways off.  The line wasn't too bad.  But everyone else was bound for Bangkok and had their baggage put into a big funky cart hauled by a little old lady.  Not me!  My special Koh Chang destination allowed me to drag my heavy bag for about a fucking mile, and up a very steep flight of stairs and down.  At the end of the line I was there with all the Bangkok folks who were picking up their carted luggage!  Oi.

The Cambodia departure side wouldn't have been that bad.  A uniformed officer invited me to pay him 200 Baht for VIP clearance, but I declined.  Instead I got into the line from hell.  I had four lines to choose from and picked the one with the broken scanner/mentally challenged or deranged official.  For every one person clearing our line there were five or six moving through the other three.  This was a bit alarming and frustrating.  A very good opportunity to practice mindfulness.

Once I finally cleared it was simply a matter of dragging my suitcase about a mile down a filthy dirty road through sweltering heat with no visible signage to reassure me.  I had read about this ahead of tiime (not the luggage dragging) so I wasn't quite as freaked out as I would have been.

Eventually I made it to the Thai immigration building, clearly marked and was confronted with the stairs.  Holy fucking shit.  

At the top of the stairs was a big hallway with three incredibly long lines.  You couldn't even see the officials up at the front.  I was more careful choosing the line this time, but it didn't really matter.  There were about 45 people ahead of me, same in each line more or less.  It only took forever.  

The room was air conditioned, down to a temperature of about 85 degrees.  People were civil.  I got into a decent conversation with the Swiss backpacker in front of me.  That made time pass.  All in all it was only an hour or so in that line.

Then down the stairs and down another filthy road, with no signage.  But they'd put a little red square sticker on my chest with KC sharpied on it.  All the Thai people knew where I was supposed to go and waved me on.  

I made it just in time to climb onto the back of an oversized songtheaw with about 15 other people and all their baggage.  I had to stand on the bumper and hold on!  That took us here to this cafe where we're supposed to eat before the 4 hour ride to the ferry.  So I'm having a club soda and fried noodles with egg and vegetables.  70 baht.

Holy shit again, I'm packed into a mini van with 13 other travelers and all our bags.  A LOT of bags.  I think most of the folks are Italian, just a guess.  Off we go...a four hour ride...

Edit...okay, so I'm here.  It only took 13 hours, including waiting an hour for the ferry and the hour long ferry ride and the terrifying trip around the island.  And the exhausting dragging my suitcase in the dark down a sandy narrow little alley, past a bunch of other funky little places, then lugging it across the beach and finally arriving.

What a slog, but totally worth it, right?  I'm totally not sure.  My room is pretty hideous.  The matress feels more like a box spring.  There's no proper windows or screening, so I'm supposed to sleep under a pink mosquito net I guess.  Easy to feel a bit disouraged.  But this place got absolute rave reviews and I'm steps away from the beach, so we'll see what tomorrow brings.  It may be paradise or I may have to look for better digs. 

At least there's good wifi...

Field Trip

Yesterday was probably my favorite day so far, touring-wise.  After changing to a new hotel my driver took me way out of town to Banteay Srei, the "citadel of women' about 45 kilometers from here.  

45 K isn't all that far in a comfy car or air con mini van.  Sitting in an open air tuk tuk with terrible suspension is a different story...especially since they don't seem to go much over 25-30 mph.  And that's not counting having to slow down for the incredible pot holes, traffic clogs, dogs and chickens in the road and so forth.

For a while, as my spine was getting pounded, I was regretting my choice of a tuk tuk, but once we really got out in the country side I realized it was absolutely perfect.  No window between me and the people and landscape.  360 degree views.  And my driver Choom was happy to stop whenever I asked.  He even offered many times at choice places.  Really nice.

Me and Choom, my driver.

Being in the countryside allowed me to see how rural Cambodians live.  Which probably hasn't changed a lot in the past 2000 years.  Sure, there's scooters and bicycles and weird farm vehicles, and lots of plastic garbage in places.  But the houses up on stilts, the woven hammocks, the baskets, the hand loomed cloth, the rice and chickens and water buffalo, it seems pretty timeless.

After a while I noticed that some compounds were really nice, with no trash or litter at all.  Others were an ugly mess.  Not that different really than the US I suppose.

Banteay Srei is touted as one of the jewels of the ancient Khmer empire.  It's carved out of red sandstone and has held up better than the other temples I've seen.  I have to admit I was a little let down by the visit.  It's quite small really.  There's not much to it.  But the thing that kind of wrecked it for me was having been to Ubud in Bali, where almost every building has gorgeous carvings around the doors and windows, pretty much along the same Hindu themes.  

Of course the carvings at Banteay Srei are a thousand years old!  That does make a difference, but it's sort of an intellectual difference. 

Plus it was really really hot!

But the next place we went (another good half hour drive) was one of my favorite places I've seen.  It's known as Kbal Spean and it's not a temple, but a river way up on a mountain side where a thousand years ago carvings were made in the river bed and on big rocks on the river banks, including 1000 lingams (phalluses).  This was all done to make the water flowing down to Angkor fertile and holy.  

I'd actually seen this in a DVD at my hotel, and it was recommended to me, otherwise I might have given up on the incredibly long and steep climb to get there.

No one had actually mentioned a climb.  It was 1800 meters actually.  They'd posted signs every 100 meters, which might have been encouraging?  I'm not sure they really had that effect on me.  I almost never sweat, but it was brutally hot and humid and my shirt was drenched by the time I got there.

And there was most definitely a "there" to get to.  Thankfully there was a wonderful english speaking guide just waiting for me.  I would have missed a lot, or most of it really, without his help.

The lingams in the water were amazing.  1000 is a lot of them!  They went on and on down the stream bed.  Our tour ended at the base of a wonderful waterfall where I stripped down to my shorts and bathed.  It was wonderful!

Of course it's always pretty grand bathing next to a waterfall.  Especially a tropical waterfall when it's super hot.  But for the real deal, make sure the water is flowing over 1000 lingams.  Unless you're trying not to get pregnant!

The spine rattling trip back was grand.  School kids in uniforms on bikes, people in their stilted house compounds, rows of women stirring huge woks making palm sugar on the side of the road, big white cows, endless rice fields, jungle and weird farm vehicles called 'buffalos' pulling wagons loaded with firewood, bags of rice, whole families.  

I feel like I finally 'get' Cambodia now.