Hanoise by Mike

To see photos of this trip, click here and then on the Viet Nam album …

We’ve just returned from (oh, excuse me) Hanoi in Northern (honk, honk) Viet Nam and my-oh-my what a (watch out!) crazy city it (beep, beep, beep) is. This video I shot will give you a good idea of what the calm chaos of the traffic flow is like. There are pedestrians, mopeds, bicycles, pedicabs, cars and trucks flowing everywhere through the narrow streets of the Old Quarter where we stayed – and somehow, with very few traffic lights, no stop signs and copious amounts of honking, it all works. The rule for crossing the street is to take a deep breath, step off the curb and walk calmly into the human transportation river – not stopping, not speeding up and definitely not looking anyone in the eye because we were told that if someone has an accident because they were distracted by your gaze, then you are at fault. (We were also told that whoever has the most money is the one who makes restitution in an accident, so we were extra-careful everywhere we went.)

An accident on the streets of Hanoi could mean tangling with a bicycle holding stacks of woven baskets; improbable pyramids of enormous jackfruit or watermelons; layers of nested cooking pots; or bouquets of flowers. Meet the wrong end of a moped and you could find yourself buried under cages of chickens, smothered by an avalanche of green leafy vegetables, or tickled to death by hundreds of feather dusters.

Then of course, there’s the human traffic. Women in pointed bamboo hats make deliveries of fish, flowers, fruit and more by balancing a long bamboo pole on their shoulder with a laden basket hanging off each end. The sidewalks aren’t for pedestrians, they are essentially front yards. There is some type of food being prepared nearly every fifth doorway including the cleaving of raw unrefrigerated meat and steaming cauldrons of soup, rice and buns over small fires. Breakfast, lunch and dinner takes place on plastic kid-sized tables where the locals sit on even smaller red plastic step stools.

The Old Quarter evolved as the heart of Hanoi’s commerce and the winding, narrow streets were originally named according to what was sold along them. We saw aluminium street, zipper street, shoe street, eyeglass street, button and bottle cap street, gravestone street, stuffed animal street and underwear alley. Pretty much anything you can imagine is sold in this town in super-small shops that look very much like they double as kitchens, living rooms and sleeping quarters for the inhabitants.

Having once been a French colony, there are pockets of civility. We had the best coffee we’ve experienced in Asia and two divine dinners where the chefs were fusing French and local cuisine with expert alchemy.

Because I had something of a love-hate relationship with the place (loved the frenetic “go” of the place, hated the endless and omnipresent honking) I was only a little sad to leave for our three-day sojourn out in the country.

We skipped the usual tourist routes of Halong Bay and Sapa in favour of taking a four-hour drive south to the Mai Chau Valley. A good and bad decision. The bad part was, as you might have guessed by now, the drive. Either the van didn’t have enough weight in it, or the shocks were shot. So we basically bounced our way through the countryside. For four hours. (It’s hard to believe it was a weight issue actually. We were constantly told we were fat during the five-day trip, even to the point of me being asked “when I was due” and some man pinching Diane’s arm and then winking at me as if to say, “you got some good stock there buddy” while we were walking through a country village. But it’s impossible to be offended by their candor as the country folk don’t see “our kind” very often.)

The first night at our hotel was spent over a small lotus pond in a truly charming bamboo hut. Then, we were moved indoors to the hotel’s only suite that was charming for entirely different reasons.

We spent our days walking and biking through various “Hill Tribe” communities. Behind the hotel, set amid glowing green rice fields that formed the floor of the valley, was a White Thai village. Another day we went to a Black Hmong market and oggled the amazing fabrics that the tribespeople wore and sold.

It was truly a reminder about how many different ways there are to live upon this earth. In the Black Hmong village, we got invited into the home of a “magician” (something like the town medicine man) and saw how a family of 7 was living in a dimly-lit, dismal common room. No privacy, no windows and no indoor plumbing so Diane only pretended to drink the tea that was poured out for us. In the White Thai village, we watched people tending the rice fields, fixing their buildings, taking their water buffalos for grazing, cooking, and weaving vibrant silk scarves on the looms they all keep beneath their raised-on-stilts homes. They were involved in the basics of living – something I sometimes feel too far away from in front of my plugged-in, air-conditioned home. The TV was, however, pretty much omnipresent – even in the home of the magician in the middle of nowhere. In fact, when we were there, he was watching some type of Hmong tug of war Olympics.

Our last day we visited a huge cave just across the street from the hotel. The hotel owners have paved the floor in concrete and set up lights along the walls so the space could be used for meetings, events and even yoga. But it was all cave –complete with crystalline drips of water and a fluttering ceiling of bats. Our guide told us that the enormous subterranean space housed Viet Cong and spare munitions during the war and had a lake on its 3^rd story! While I did follow the ladder to the second floor, I wasn’t brave enough to squeeze myself through the hole the bats were using as a highway to see much more.

Viet Nam may have a troubled past, but the country is clearly busy moving beyond that, trumpeting their arrival in the 21^st century with the ceaseless honks of Hanoi.

Diane adds a final note:

All over Hanoi there are shops selling a mind-boggling variety of silks. (I even managed to get a local Vietnamese outfit custom-made in about 14 hours.) In hindsight, silk is the perfect metaphor for the city because Hanoi is raw, unfinished, sultry, shiny, vibrant, flowing, overflowing, washable and most of all, must be handled with care! I can’t wait to go back and feel the allure of it all over again.

Contrast in Cambodia by Diane

Note:  With this blog entry, we’re switching to displaying our photos on Picasa.  You can view all of the Cambodia shots, plus pictures of our recent trips to Puerto Galera in the Philippines and Sibu Island in Malaysia by clicking here when you’re done reading.

Like all tourists bound for Angkor Wat, we were captivated by the ancient temples.  Our photos, reminiscent of all the photos you have ever seen of this destination, capture only a small bit of the evocative, sometimes eerie, always enticing 12th century ruins.  Two things really surprised us.  First, you can literally climb all over these crumbling temples.  There are no barriers, no silk ropes; instead there are arrows pointing “this way” with tourists from all over the world crawling through the warrens of doorways, windows and half-walls in pursuit of that one unique photo.  I’m not sure how long this “freedom” will last, and it exists in stark contrast to the serenity of the place.  Still we found ourselves quieted by our own awe as we examined the intricacy of the carvings, the weathered color on the walls, and — most astounding of all considering the march of years — the symmetrically aligned doorways that invite your eyes to see from one end of the temple to the other, a distance you find unfathomable, while light falls and fades a dozen times along the path.

The second surprise was that most of the temples (and there are thousands, btw) are in the middle of the woods! The famous photos we’ve all seen never include the surrounding pine forests and tall wispy trees.  It’s gorgeous and flat and many of the temples are connected by scenic bike paths and stone bridges and are flanked by multi-story, multi-faced ornate archways.  Wow. The forests provided much of the “cover” that preserved the temples and hid them during the years of war that ravaged Cambodia – a place with the unfortunate distinction of being the most bombed country on earth.

Cambodia can appear to be a sad, sad place.  Wars have stolen whole generations of families and the Khmer Rouge regime was responsible for unspeakable savagery.  We visited The Land Mine Museum outside Siem Reap, created through the efforts of one ex-soldier who planted land mines during wartime and has now dedicated his life to finding and defusing thousands of them, and helping survivors enjoy lives without limbs. Contrary to what you’d expect, it was an uplifting experience.

Everywhere you look it is either muddy or dusty and so very poor. What little water runs through the village is used for everything imaginable – and this is water that you and I would prefer not to wash our feet in.  Out of nowhere, there are suddenly bursts of color in the middle of monochromatic dirty, silty street life and you see baskets of chili, vibrant silks, decked-out tuk-tuks and ear-to-ear smiles on barely-clothed children. Cambodians could simply be broken people, but instead they are very busy people, busy rebuilding lives that have seen the worst that man can do to man.

It’s the first place in Asia that I noticed what I could describe as an absence of pride – very little attention paid to flourish or the indulgence of beauty – and in its place an abundance of humility.  It’s as though everything here is fragile and tentative and all can be lost again with the change of the winds.  It was also the first time in a long time that I didn’t feel sorry for the street dogs – I simply couldn’t muster enough empathy for animals when surrounded by so much collective human suffering.

A thought struck me on a ride through the countryside – the idea of geographical or psychological relativity – if you don’t know your life is hard, then it isn’t.  What looked grueling to us was far better than the alternative that Cambodians have known.  And that’s what gives the country its unique vibe – people are brimming with gratitude for the little they have.  I felt, time and again, we were witness to the beauty and endurance of the human spirit.

And thankfully, the world is helping out.  We saw many US and European-sponsored homes that were part of a clean water project.  We visited a small orphanage and brought rice, noodles, cookies and school supplies and the surprised and grateful faces of the children will live long in our memories. There are lots of projects and ways to help and peace has finally come to this simple country.

Some final thoughts…

We were amused that along the roadside, almost all of the containers used to sell gasoline were Johnnie Walker bottles! (Black, Red, Blue labels – maybe that’s why these Cambodians are so smiley!) Outside the city, in front of many houses you see enormous steaming cauldrons of boiling sugar cane that’s being reduced to a type of brown sugar candy that’s a national favorite.  Michael donated a pint of blood at the hospital and he was treated like a celebrity – they just couldn’t thank him enough.  The joy of Obama is still ringing loudly in Cambodia, a country of underdogs sees themselves in him.  We saw many ornate staircases – wide, wooden, carved and fancily painted staircases – really expensive looking steps that connected bare ground to a simple wood house on stilts; I could only imagine that it was symbolic of connecting heaven and earth.  And on a ride back from too much “templing” we saw two men on scooters, each with a full-size live pig tied upside-down on the back, clearly en route to its “final destination.”  I was struck quiet by the sight and I realized that it is hard to witness the last minutes of any life, even a life that would be feed so many.   And that’s what Cambodia was for us – a country of constant contrasts.

Click here for photos.

Piercing A Typical Singapore Night By Mike

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Singapore nights tend to be a little on the tame side.  Usually a nice meal, perhaps followed by a visit to a club, then home.  That’s why this Saturday, when some new friends of ours suggested we head to Little India to see preparations for the Thaipusam festival, I jumped at the chance — even though it was 3AM.

Thaipusam is in many ways, the Indian Thanksgiving.  Devotees to Murugan, the Tamil God of War, march along a set route carrying a burden of some sort.  For some people, this burden is a silver pot on their heads.  More strikingly, for others, it’s an elaborate metal pyramid-like structure attached to their bodies with dozens of long needles that pierce their flesh.  Through these burdens, the devotees either thank the God for his help throughout the year or implore his help for relieving a troubling issue in the year to come. 

Saturday night was the preparatory night and we were lucky enough to find the temple in Little India where the devotees were getting themselves ready for the festival that would take place the following morning.  We were graciously invited inside the temple after being given a bag to remove our shoes and were allowed to wander among the participants as they were being pierced.  Due to days of preparation that involve fasting and prayer, they hardly seemed to notice that the rods were being attached to their skin. 

Pounding rhythmic music played at all corners from duos consisting of a thavil drummer and nadaswaram (think snake-charmer flute, only this one is the world’s loudest non-brass acoustic instrument) player.  Intoxicating incense filled the air, creating a haze that was pierced by the amazingly colourful saris and makeshift shrines created by attendees.  In all it was a rare, intimate glimpse at a culture that felt completely other and completely non-Singaporean.  Sure beat a night dancing to an an anonymous DJ somewhere!

Some devotees are also pierced with bells or fruit on hooks.

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Adieu Kota Kinabalu by Mike

A forgotten foundation.

For larger versions of all pictures, please click here.

So as any faithful reader of this blog knows, we like to travel a lot.  And, for the most part, our travels have been richly rewarding experiences.  But I guess the odds were that we would eventually pick a destination that would have been better left off our ever-expanding itinerary.

Enter Kota Kinabalu.

Located on the northeastern part of Malaysian Borneo, our idea in visiting this town was to take advantage of the Chinese New Year holiday and go somewhere close and affordable.  It was both of those things, but that’s about it.

Kota Kinabalu (KK) is really just a starting point for people to do more interesting things in Borneo, like hop a small flight to the other side of the island to see the Sepilok Orangutan Reserve. Being a little burned-out from our marathon trip to the States in November, we decided to not move around very much.  Of course, the Achilles tendon I damaged on New Year’s Eve from hopping around like an idiot also helped contribute to that decision.  So we stayed in KK which was kind of a drab, run-down little city with unbelievable traffic jams and a maddening lack of good restaurants.  We should have left.

In fact, the few times we did escape the city limits, we had a pretty good time.

A three-year old orangutan just hanging around.

Our first day, we headed to a small Orangutan Rehab centre at nearby Rasa Ria resort that works in conjunction with Sepilok.  After viewing a really good documentary about how the orang’s natural habitat is being destroyed through palm oil plantation expansion, we went into the jungle to spy on two young males who were lured out with sliced fruit.  It really reminded me of how much different creatures are suited for different environments (like me and tropical beach bars), as I watched them effortlessly climb, swing and navigate the canopy with astonishing grace and ease.

On day two, we hopped a boat to the nearby TAR Marine Park and visited Manukan Island — a welcome tropical respite from the city.  Despite what the tour websites and guides said though, a decent stretch of coral for snorkeling couldn’t be found.  I also had my flip-flops stolen from the beach.  At least my foot wasn’t already injured or anything …

A pirate surveys the scene off Manukan Island. (Or is that a pirate's wife?)

Our final day, we hired a driver for a two-hour journey to Mount Kinabalu.  Most tourists head to this part of Malaysia to climb the mountain, but the park itself is worth days of exploring.  It has ten species of carnivorous pitcher plants, 1,400 types of orchids, over 300 species of birds, and the world’s largest flower – the raffleasia, with horrendous-smelling blooms that can reach 3 feet in diameter.  Of course, we didn’t see any of that because it was exceedingly misty and we weren’t at the right part of the mountain, but it was still pretty magical to be in cool woods hiking past Jurassic-Park-like foliage.

Yup, it really grows like that.

While we left only footprints, I managed to take something more than memories with me.  After we were back at the hotel Diane said, “Wow, you have a lot of blood on your pants.”  I said, “No, that’s just mud, it was a reddish color.”  When we got backt to the room though and I took them off, she was absolutely right.  Not only were my pants bloodied, but the upper band of my sock was pretty soaked too.  Strange thing was, I didn’t feel any injury at all.

That was one mean little leech!

Remembering what one of the park rangers had told us, we hopped on the Internet, looked up “leech” and found out that not only do you not feel them bite because of an anisthetic they inject before they attach, but they also leave behind an anti-clotting agent which keeps the blood flowing long after they drop off.  Nice.

Time to nurse the wounds of the day.  We headed out and got strong fruity drinks at one of a few seaside bars.  That led to more drinks and finally a decent Thai meal on the dock where we watched Nora Jones serenade us from a large outdoor TV screen.  This was followed by a Madonna concert (on screen of course) then a trip to the Karaoke bar where I sang the Lion Sleeps Tonight with a drunken band of Chinese New Year revellers.  Somehow a fitting way to bid adieu to Kota Kinabalu — which we actually left two days early, a rarity indeed in the vacationing ventures of Mike and Diane!

Magic Market

These shots were all taken at a nighttime market which we could look down on from our hotel room.  The amazing thing was that the market sprung up at night with dozens of carnival-coloured tents, cook stoves, produce, fresh fish, and chiles, chiles, chiles … and by morning, it was all gone only to be reconstructed each night.

And now for something completely different and one of the weirdest things we’ve seen on a sign in Asia yet.  Your guess is as good as ours …

And here’s a little video of a couple of hairy little guys:

If you’ve received this by email and care to comment, click the headline above, scroll down on the webpage to which you’ll be taken, and leave your thoughts.  Thanks!

Musings On Massages, Mosquitos and Minorities by Diane

Ok – it’s been too long since we blogged about anything to anyone.  We’re sorry, but contrary to what you might think of our adventurous life, it’s full of the same stuff as yours – bookkeeping, dog grooming, family joys and woes, work obligations, finding time to socialize, privatize, economize, prioritize, exercise and compromise.  Thus, we sometimes go quiet, for lengthy periods of preservation.

Needless to say, autumn was all about Obama. Everywhere, the world in smiling support all around us.  We had an Obama victory party and were amazed to see about 30 people in our condo – is it possible we KNOW 30 people already?  Seems so, and amen for that.  I had ordered a deluxe cake from one of the better hotels on Monday before election day.  They were amused by my high hopes and the clear victory message on the cake.  In fact, they sent me a congratulations email on Wed., confirming the cake delivery and their joy at the outcome.  Every cabbie, every colleague, every confused and coherent Singaporean we meet seems to echo the jaw-dropping surprise of it all and the bucket loads of hope the world is investing in Obama.  He is an Ox, according to the Chinese calendar and he’s become president in the year of the Ox, so there is much hope.  Everyone is trying to ignore that 44 (as in the 44th) is double-bad luck, though I did read yesterday that the combination of his birthdate numbers, 1961, is considered so amazingly lucky that it will overcome all other auspicious concerns.  Well I was born in 1961 too, same month as Obama, so I’m having to re-evaluate my expectations of self this year….

Finally a massage mystery solved in Shanghai. I now understand why they are called “parlors.”  Secreted on the 7th floor of a dingy office building was a massage parlor extraordinaire.  Oversized reclining stuffed chairs, four to a room, beautiful wood furniture, dimmed indirect lighting, orchids climbing the walls and comfort oozing through the door seams and floor boards .  There was no sign of anything clinical or colorful, no Enya or exotic asian music, and I started wondering what was going on.  My colleague told me he brought me to a place that was “good enough for the Japanese to frequent” but still priced right for Shanghaiese.  After a few peaceful moments, intended to achieve solitude through deep breathing, the door to our parlor slid open and in came two men each carrying, BY HAND, an enormous wooden cask of warm water.  Rope handles were all that held these barrel-sized behemoths from flooding our cozy parlor.  Steaming hot towels were delivered, waxy lotion applied from just above the knees to the tips of my toes and I surrendered to the refuge of reflexology.  No words were exchanged, beyond a few nods of approval.  Oh let’s not forget  it was still a polluted city full of crashing cars, spitting citizens and tainted milk, but I pranced through my  parlor dreams for the next 90 minutes. Supposedly, falling asleep is the highest compliment, so I’ll have to go back and give that my best shot.  On my “floating” walk home, I saw a sign in the intersection that said “We are polite people.  Please don’t step in street before green light.”   Compliance in China isn’t about laws, it’s about deciding to be comply at all.  Shanghai is ultra-modern, but there’s a contrast on every corner.

And now, just a few musings on our continuing life in Singapore…

*I recently moved to a window office at RD, but not until the Feng Shu master came in, reviewed the birth days, years and times of the managers, annointed the office, lit some joss sticks as a blessing, reangled a few office doors (that was costly!) and said that we would all prosper in our new surroundings.  Guess he wasn’t reading the papers back in November.

*I’ve brought my own lunch to work a few times – homemade soup, pasta leftovers etc.  Doing so guarantees anyone instant freak status in Singapore. Nobody really cooks at home, eating out is so cheap and prevalent, why would I ever even make soup?  Or pack it to work?  Surely craving a non-oily, non-Asian, veggie filled lunch isn’t reason enough.  Wonder what they think now that I bring my own espresso.  It’s NOT a coffee culture here and I just got fed up with lousy coffee so I bought a good machine and now I take my Illy coffee in my thermos, like the much-misunderstood Ang Mo that I am.

*I had to return unopened liquid shower soap when I noticed it had bleaching agent in it.  It’s really hard to avoid skin whiteners in every day products.  Those properties are such a benefit that it’s often not even mentioned…so it’s pretty easy to apply small doses of Clorox to your skin without knowing it.  Don’t even think about getting a tan, and don’t leave your building at mid-day without an umbrella, lest the sun pink your cheeks.  OK, I know they’re right but what about the benefits of Vitamin D and getting 20 minutes of sunshine daily?  Jeez.  It is a land obsessed with personal beauty – we are barraged with advertisements for all manner of surgical corrections – the most popular of which is corrective eyelid surgery.  It’s about $2,000 per eye, to make double eyelids, but it’s cheaper in South Korea if you’re ever headed that way.

*To keep things equitable, and keep parents honest, height is used to mark age, instead of what mommy and daddy protest.  So to decide if Junior pays child’s busfare or is entitled to a child’s plate, you simply stand next to the measure line.  No verbal exchange required.  Love that.

*There are “Dengue Kills” posters everywhere, with microscopic close-ups of the mosquito with massive stingers.  Full sides of buses are covered with “If They Breed, You Bleed” advertisements.  It’s jarring to look at and I have no idea if it’s effective but it sears the mind.  Malaysia, our neighbor to the North and East, has had 4,000+ new cases in January 2009, including 12 deaths.  That’s triple the same month last year.  Uh-oh.  Needless to say, I’m starting to choose long sleeves and light pants more often.

*I had a Muslim lady tell me that I looked like the Bee Gees lead singer.  Or maybe his sister, she wasn’t sure.  A few minutes later she said, “never mind, it’s really Lucy you look like…and you sound like her too.”  Two days later, a cabbie told me that he was “honored to have Julie Andrews” in his cab – meaning me!  “You do KNOW the Sound of Music, right?”  Oh yeah, I even danced to Edelweiss with my father at my wedding, but never saw/felt/conjured the resemblance.  It was clearly a compliment, though I thought what he needed to see most was my Madonna Halloween costume from a decade ago – then he would know a few of my favorite things! Being and looking and sounding different just elicits truth from strangers – there’s no time or words for polite diplomacy.   It got me thinking though about my identity as I’ve traversed this world – I’ve been a Haole in Hawaii, an English in Amish country, a Gringo in Puerto Rico and now an Ang Mo in Asia.  I’ve always identified with minorities, and now I wonder if I’ve morphed into one.  But Andy Gibb?  I think I need a new hairstyle…

*September was the Muslim month of fasting, and I thought about using it as a weight-loss opportunity, but scratched that idea.  Five of my eight-member team were fasting from sunrise to sunset for 30 days – no water, no caffeine, no snacks, nada.  I had to deal with the grumpiness and the hunger and the low energy of all of them, while keeping my own desk snacks hidden from view and minimizing my trips to the water cooler.  They didn’t care about my habits, but I thought a dose of old-fashioned Catholic guilt was clearly called for.  I couldn’t muster the solidarity for the fast, but I did enjoy the end of month feasting that followed!

*For the first time in all my travels, I had to visit a US embassy.  I’ve had a passport for 22 years and have been to at least 22 countries but luckily never needed to take refuge in a US embassy.  I think I’ll nickname myself the Fortunate Traveler.   No injuries, no natural disasters, no arrests, no passport theft, no political asylum – an awful lot of fun but no need to seek the shelter of the stars and stripes on foreign soil.   Well, while waiting to have additional pages sewn into my current passport (lots of multi-country trips now) I took notice of a sign in the waiting area.  In case you’re curious, here are a few things the American Embassy will NOT do for you, and I quote:  We can’t search for your lost luggage, we won’t settle hotel manager disputes for you, we won’t get you a driver’s license or a job and we won’t call a credit card company for you.   Imagine that they get asked to do this often enough that they had to print the sign?  Americans Abroad – there’s a scary subject.  I think somebody working at the Embassy needs to write a tell-all book soon.

There’s always more to say and always, if luck holds, another installment from the Fortunate Travelers.