Hong Kong





Hong Kong Harbor

Friday November 9, 2012

After a halting departure from home, frustrated by another round of extreme weather in NYC, we finally landed in Hong Kong this evening.   Scott "The Shalom Meatball" Stuart greeted us with exactly the Kurtz-like style that we both would have expected from him.  Directed to an express light rail that should be the shame of every inadequate western airport, we zipped into town past sparkling high-rises and a jungle of loading cranes backed by mountains and water that one would likely imagine to characterize one of the world's busiest port. Clean, modern, dense, sloped, and surprisingly empty at the hour of our arrival, Hong Kong has, so far, largely lived up to my image of it. Scott very graciously met us outside the turnstiles of the MTR train decked out in what apparently is his signature sarong; bottled water and a bag of greasy chestnuts in hand.



Our Host with the Most - The Mayor of Hong Kong, Scott Stuart

He quickly loaded us into a cab and provided the slightly manic narrative introduction to Asia one would anticipate from this city but which was absent at 9pm on a Friday evening. Winding hillside streets and narrow canyons of 70s Chinatown-style low rises alternating with more recent superlative glass towers, Scott characterizes his neighborhood of Sheung Wan as a budding hipster haven that has traditionally been zoned commercial and avoided as a residential address until recently because of its history as a coffin- making area haunted by ghosts ( I think I heard that right through the haze of an 18- hour flight).

Hollywood Road at night feels like a hybrid of a shuttered New York Chinatown and the vacant commercial districts of cities like San Francisco, Seattle or LA. Scott rents a floor in the commercial section of a 60s era apartment building. Flourescent-lit, and guarded by a sleeping older gentleman, Scott's home and office is one floor up in a tight elevator. To the left is the office space he uses to oversee the manufacture of toys for his family's company back in the US. Tricycles and building blocks, fresh from factories in the other part of "one country, two systems" lie about the floor.  The apartment is a long, spacious, low-ceilinged loft decorated with Orientalia and whimsical knick-knacks a la some 1940s LA Chinese restaurant.

We leave our shoes with their Hong Kong filth at the door and are offered our own sarongs - the ultimate garment of Asia we are told. Scott has been incredibly hospitable, setting us up on a classically styled Chinese day bed, pouring us white wine in tall shot glasses and getting us out the door in short order for dinner. Walking through the neighborhood felt familiar to me. Sort of like San Francisco and strangely like the Brera neighborhood of Milan. We ate at a place called Shanghai Lane which was like a refined and superior Grand Sichuan in Chelsea - cold soy zucchini, bbqed pork and tofu knots, green beans and minced pork, beef and vegetables, beer amazing and inducing of a jet-lagged gorging.! 

Tofu Knot

  

Luckily we walked it off through the labyrinths of the neighborhood down to the waterfront. Past the old colonial Western Market and all the corporate glass to a great view of the harbor and mainland China in the distance. Back up the hill with an invisible Victoria Peak before us, we got our weary dazed selves home and into bed. The sun is coming up right about now but don't expect Hong Kong to come alive for another 4 hours at 10:00 am. Time for a nap.

Saturday November 10, 2012

Thrown off by the time change, late-night visiting and the stimulation of being in such a foreign setting, I barely managed to sleep for more than 3 hours on our first night in Hong Kong. Sheung Wan is surprisingly quiet to be the Williamsburg of this city, though Scott assures us this is the closest thing Hong Kong has to such an enclave. There are a few trendy-looking restaurants, bars and decorating stores but the area is still a fairly unassuming commercial district set on a hill of narrow winding streets, deep concrete canyons and stairways connecting the various terraces of the neighborhood. We've seen a few cool antique and chachke store but have yet to explore much here. Our first daytime exploration of Hong Kong took us to a classic dim sum parlor that would not at all be unfamiliar to anyone who has frequented the glittery Sopranoesque dining halls of Chinatown in New York - Treasure Lake Golden Banquet.

We let Scott do all the ordering and ended up with some classics like shumai, pork buns and choy sum, but also a completely foreign dish that was described on the menu as pickled pink ginger with preserved egg. The eggs - duck - came out hard boiled with black yolks and translucent brown whites that we presumed came from some kind of tea-infused brine. The ginger moderated the foreignness but it still had a fairly exotic, if subtle, flavor.

Black eggs and ginger

We then set out on streets that finally were populated by the stereotypical bustle associated with HK, wandering markets of mainland-made plastic and clothing. Jumping on a ding-ding - narrow double-decker street trollies - we got the perfect 25-cent tour of the central shopping district.
 

Both street names and vibe were very reminiscent of London's central shopping corridor - Gloucester, Queens Way, Lockhart, Hennessy. We hopped off the ding-ding and made a foray into one for the street markets where we got our first taste of the Hong Kong's eclectic discount outdoor shopping malls. Standouts included fantastic toy shops with Star Wars and anime action figures and knock-off Legos with military themes as well as a place with large clear plastic bags of goldfish and tubs of miniature turtles.

Scott directed us to what we are told should be the first of many massages we can expect while in this part of the world. We walked up a staircase on a side street and ended up in a parlor that looked like it could be your classic mani-pedi business but also hinted at other possible services. We opted for an indulgently long foot massage that combined reflexology with a vigorous Swedish kneading. We watched highlights of Hong Kong's sporting scene on the flat screen TV before us as Scott provided a requested English tutorial from one of our masseuses.

Washed, massaged and refreshed, we headed back out onto the streets where we hopped into a cab for the spectacular ride up to Victoria Peak. Amazing and somewhat nouveau tacky, the top of the world in Hong Kong is crowned with a galleria of luxury good. The views, however are probably the most stunning I've ever seen, reminiscent of but exponentially overshadowing other famous heights like Telegraph Hill in San Francisco or the World Trade Center.

With the sun going down over the South China Sea, we started to hit our wall and took the double-decker bus back down Peak Road just as all the city's neon was coming on. We were so tired at this point that we never made it out again.

Sunday November 11, 2012

We started today with a late brunch in the neighborhood, adjacent to the travelator, the "longest outdoor escalator in the world" - more than half a mile long and connecting the terraces of Hong Kong's urban hillside.  It was tourist central but we ate well and enjoyed looking at a parade of different faces being conveyed past us. Scott took us down to a cooler Asian version of Urban Outfitters/Alessi called G.O.D. to do some gift shopping - arty books, furniture, t-shirts, housewares and furniture - and then left us to wander the mellower market streets of upper Sheung Wan. It felt like a Chinese Monmartre with cute trendy boutiques and old fashioned vegetable, meat and fish stands. Carrie purchased a collection of new fruits including our first rose apple and a dragon fruit.

Dragon Fruit

After enjoying our first true espresso in Asia at a Soho-styled clothes store and cafe, we strolled back to the apartment to rest before dinner. Tonight was a more epic excursion involving cab, ferry and double decker bus to take us from Hong Kong island where Scott lives across the harbor to Kowloon and what Scott likes to call the Dark Side.  He timed our ferry ride to coincide with Hong Kong's waterfront extravaganza called Symphony of Lights, a Disneyesque light and music show where most of the skyscrapers on the waterfront flashed multi-colored lights and lasers timed to a rousing patriotic soundtrack.



Ferry to Kowloon



Symphony of Lights



Japanese BBQ in Kowloon

Our dining destination tonight was a Japanese steak place where you ordered and grilled your own cuts of beef, pork, fish etc. My first taste of tongue and gizzard which will probably do me for this life. It wasn't particularly dark but did feature the seedy Times-Square-of-old vibe with massage parlors offering "menus of women" (maybe Mitt paid a visit here during his Bain days) from round the world, Russians being the most expensive.

Aside from the sex, Kowloon featured long bright avenues of retail and its star attraction Lady Street in Mong Kok. This was dense yards-high street stall retail crammed with teenagers out on the town - rubber shoes, toys, counterfeit and cheap glitter; basically Canal Street on steroids with exotic food stalls including infamous stinky tofu. We bought a token jewel-encrusted, skull-themed, brass-knuckle-handled clutch and a coconut custard beverage in a coconut.

Bangkok 




Monday November 12, 2012



Our 4th mode of transportation from Hong Kong to our hotel in Bangkok

After one of the smoothest and modern air travel experiences we'd ever experienced, we landed in a tropical humid Bangkok today and got our first taste of the contrasts that this country presents - a Blade Runner- like layering of technology and design that surpasses the west and crowded dirty medieval squalor. Huge glass towers next to flooded paddies and traditional Thai stilt houses. Abandoned concrete housing blocks covered in garbage in the shadow of air-conditioned high-speed light rail. Mangy street dogs, packs of zippy mopeds, bumper-to-bumper traffic everywhere. Food and other stalls lining avenues.  We thought New York embodied the ultimate urbanism but it is a pale subdued ordered and clean sleepy town compared to Bangkok. The current urban face of Bangkok has gone up so fast since the 70s that there seems to be very little of the old city in evidence; few canals, few old buildings just layers of concrete and metal and, eventually glass, layered on top of each other. In this quality, it shares some of its character with New York and Hong Kong. The crazy place we are staying now just outside Bangkok is this bizarre intersection of global sharing of ideas - it is the ultimate Dwell high-concept eco designer architecture that captures the reality of this quasi- third world country that is very primitive in many ways still even while it is cutting-edge in so many others.



Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport

Getting here was insane. we drove through dense traffic for an hour to this far-flung urban suburb with a refinery on the far side of the river. we were dropped off at the end of a dead-end road with food stands, stray dogs, buddhpist temple and not a single person who spoke english or was aware of the existence of this crazy hotel. everyone is SO nice. we just dialed our temporary cell phone hotel, handed the phone to a guy who was eating dinner at the family frozen lemonade stand next to the dock and let him speak to the one person who was at the hotel desk; and who also didn't speak english. He told us to wait where we were while someone came to get us then gave us a stool,a lemonade and tried to speak to us about the election and Obama - we weren't sure if he was asking us about taxes or taxis in Bangkok. Alas, we should have spoken Thai. Someone did eventually come find us - the sweet young woman who also didn't speak much English. All of about 90 pounds, she grabbed our bags and hauled them down to a waiting

speedboat ferry.

 

These things are like long flat skinny canoes where you are sitting at water level - water that you DON'T want to fall in like in Venice - and strapped to the back are huge loud speedboat engines. This will give you an idea.

It took all of about one minute to get here. And when we did, we were leaning towards the regret side of surreal awe. We are the only guests. Our room is a 3-story wood and glass tower on stilts over mucky water connected to the rest of the hotel by platform walkways.

It is all the website describes, just in a very foreign context. It is a kind of nature preserve but the water has lots of garbage floating in it. The design is beautiful and original. We have jungle birds or monkeys chirping outside our glass doors and the sound of speed boats was so loud at dinner, we had to stop talking as they passed. Our room number is demarcated by the number of stones stacked on the rail outside and we had young coconuts and personal notes written on palm leaves greeting us when we arrived.  Our toilet has a the glass floor that allows one to peer 10 ft down to the swamp below where there is drift wood, styrofoam, tropical plants, a coconut, a sandal or two, a ping pong ball, bottles. I would not be surprised to see a monitor lizard swim by.

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

After a bit of a jarring arrival in Bangkok but a restful sleep in our nest at The Tree House, we woke up in a much more game mood to roll with Bangkok's inconsistencies. We ordered breakfast and set out on a short exploration of what we learned to be an island at is one of the few remaining large green patches so the city, though it is actually right outside the city limits. In spite of its pollution and rickety planning, once we got out on the elevated concrete paths of this place, it was quite impressive. They call it the Green Lungs of Bangkok and it is a lush relatively unspoiled jungle of a place with rural traditional styled wooden houses on stilts over what is basically a swamp. There are some "home stays " out here but this place is pretty tourist-free. There are small farms, a weekend floating market, a small village and a rare lack of people compared to what we experienced just over the river. We came back after our brief bicycle survey of the area to enjoy another shockingly delicious breakfast of tropical fruits like rambutan, rose apple, custard fruit, mango, as well as a chocolate waffle with pineapple, poached egg and delicious espresso.

Jackfruit, custardfruit, rambutan

We found ourselves scratching our heads again as to whether we were in a first-class boutique hotel or an incredibly creative and original home stay. The food seemed gourmet but was purely traditional. The service was fantastic but the staff were locals hired from the island. During breakfast, the owner called us and introduced himself, asking how our arrival and night had gone. A western-educated son of diplomats, Joey offered us a ride back into the city when he came out to check on the place. Carrie had an appointment for a consultation on her knee at Bumrungrad Hospital downtown and we were worried we might miss it if we waited. However, Joey offered to sort out the appointment and we really didn't want to miss the chance for an interpreter to this city that we just couldn't get a handle on.



Riding past a Buddhist temple and crematorium

He suggested, in the mean time, that we take a guided bike tour with Paul, a resident American expat from Tennessee who also was able to give us great perspective on where we were, what the story was with the nature around here and generally what was up with Bangkok, the nature, the pollution, the people on the island. We saw more stray dogs, monitor lizards, beautiful traditional wooden houses, the floating market (closed during the week and the only reason tourists trek out here).

We returned to the deck restaurant of the hotel to be greeted by Joey who pulled out a fantastic map to give us the lay of Bangkok's land and make some suggestions on what to do during our one day in Bangkok. We jumped back in a speedboat for the ride to his car - a vintage Mercedes - and the commute into town to the hospital. It was a great opportunity to grill him on the hotel and the location and the inspiration. We had thought he was some designer/architect pursuing his dream. There were so many detailed thoughts involved in this place, we figure it had to be his project. The reality was much more straightforward - he wanted a hotel that was differentiated than all the boxes in Bangkok, he had always been interested in green architecture but had never studied it. He was a graduate of SAIS and came home to Bangkok, helped his mother build a B&B out of their family (for 7 generations) villa in town and then expanded to the Treehouse using an architect and interior designer to come up with the ideas.

Downtown Bangkok and Jim Thompson




Jim Thompson and Friend

We then ventured out into the bustle of Bangkok where I tried my first street food. Not bad. Not sick. But nothing exciting to report there. And then to Jim Thompson's House- a museum commemorating the colorful American ex-OSS officer who revived the trade in Thai silk and built an international business that thrives to this day. In addition to this great business feat, he also helped redecorate the famous Victorian-era Oriental Hotel and collected a compound's worth of traditional Thai houses to build a dream urban estate in the center of Bangkok. And then, in 1962, he disappeared in the jungles of Malaysia and was never heard from again.



In search of food, we headed to a market that we were told was great but which turned out to be a sanitized food court in a giant galleria. We ended up in the MacDonalds of Thailand, a bit disappointed. They had the classics but without the soul. We were more successful, however, in finding flip flops for the trip and a great place for a fish massage see sign below for explanation).  Back in the street again - this time to find what was supposed to be an interesting market and redlight district - we wandered through massive crowds and stalls selling everything from t-shirts and chachkes to soup and all manner of street food that makes this part of the world famous. We wanted it to be charming but it just felt like Lower Broadway in New York during prime shopping season. We bailed and headed back to the Green Lung, disappointed if not surprised at our introduction to Bangkok, Jim Thompson and Baumrengrad Hospital notwithstanding.  . 

Some of the many faces of Bangkok



Tuk Tuk Parade in Downtown Bangkok



Shopping Mall Fish Massage




Classic Thai-style promotion in red light district near Silom

Phuket



Wednesday, November 14, 2012 - Sunday, November 18, 2012

Sooner than we thought, we were very prepared to leave Bangkok. So we headed out to Don Meung Airport for our flight down to Phuket and what we hoped would clear the noise and soot from our systems. We landed and took a taxi through a pretty typical commercial beach landscape replete with giant billboards advertising all-you-can-eat buffets and Ringling Brothers Vegas cabarets - think Puerto Rico for Southeast Asia. When we pulled up at our hotel on the beach at Bang Tao, it took us a moment to adjust to the Club Med-esque facility that greeted us.



Bang Tao Beach

Though hardly the quaint beach bungalow resort we'd imagined, it certainly was deluxe.  We'd discovered that we could use miles from a credit card I had signed up for last year but could never find a flight for which we could use them.  So we after some minimal research in Hong Kong and a recommendation from Scott to check out Phuket, we cleared out our mileage balance on this blowout at a Swiss-run resort called Moevenpick.  I think their claim to fame is ice cream so no idea why they have a beach resort in Thailand.  Nevertheless, we had a giant suite, a beautiful pool with swim-up bar, and our own private pool terrace. We grew to appreciate the luxury soon enough and used our modern base to explore.

The next four days were spent, as one might expect, not doing much but lazing around. There was not much in the way of historic or cultural interest around us but there was delicious food on the beach, Thai massage at sunset, really nice people and even a little time for me (Marc) to do some work. We had a strong Internet connection so were able to Skype with some family and friends.

Though not pristine and completely free of litter, the beaches of Phuket were pretty spectacular for a destination that is not exactly off the beaten track. The water is beautifully clear and warm - maybe about 80 - but cool enough for relief from the heat. The sand is white and the coastline, while developed and occasionally cheesy commercial is still charming, dotted with thatched roofed mom-and-pop restaurants, bars and massage tents.

One bit of advice we were given for this phase of our trip was to get a Thai massage everyday.  They are cheap, available everywhere and incredibly relaxing.  Unfortunately, we only found time for one but managed to time it exactly as the sun was setting. We were right on the beach with the waves just feet away and the sky changing from orange to red to purple whenever we'd open our eyes.

The food during this time ranged from good to great. Nothing was disappointing and there were a few standouts including a delicious whole grouper in red curry, great papaya salad, pad Thai and thom ka gai. The hotel where were staying was Swiss-run, so every morning we had a decadent buffet breakfast that included everything from Thai noodles, fish, curried vegetables, tropical fruits to European cold cuts, musli, yogurt to American waffles, French toast and omelettes. So we were ( or should have been) pretty sated for the day. But then we'd sit down at a beach restaurant and want to try everything.

We only spent one day exploring, renting a scooter on our last day and following the west coast north from Bang Tao almost to the northern end of Phuket - maybe 30 miles or so - where we had heard that the state park land of Mai Khao offered beaches that were isolated and free of commercial development and tourists. While we did find a number of spots, including a resort we'd love to return to where they filmed The Beach, most of the Northwest beaches were almost too isolated and the waters rough so we worked our way back to the more honky-tonk destination of Nai Thon Beach. Food carts lined the road, which ran right along the beach, selling everything from beautiful tropical fruits to crepes to soup. We opted for a tiki bar on the far end called Peter's where we again were dazzled by the quality of "tourist" food. Barbecued whole fish, Thai beef salad, and the best massaman curry, Singha, coconut juice. The beach, despite tourists like us, life guards, chaise rentals, and restaurants was beautiful and charming.





Peter's Beach Restaurant - Nai Thon Beach





Fish grilled on the beach with Massaman curry

A picture-perfect cove with hills coming down on either side, it reminded us a bit of Stinson Beach in N. California. My favorite feature of this beach in particular and many Phuket beaches in general are the groves of pine and palm trees that have been left right on the beaches for shade - postcard material.

Alas, the time came when we had to leave the nest of westernized Thailand and the luxury of an inclusive resort to see what lay at the other end of the spectrum in terms of development.  Next stop: Myanmar.

Yangon, Myanmar

November 19, 2012

With a brief but toxic (literally) stopover in Bangkok, our next destination was Yangon, Myanmar. Having an early morning flight today, we decided to just stay at an airport hotel. This would have been a stress-free connection if we hadn't fallen prey to the imitation TGI Friday's in our hotel where we were served a burger (what were we thinking?) and fajitas that poisoned us like none of the street food we'd consumed to date. I am still betting the meat came from Sysco and the United States. Luckily, we'd packed antibiotics for just such an occasion and I managed to get my gastro situation under control after about 24 hours in Myanmar. Unfortunately, symptoms that we believed Carrie had dodged were, rather, deferred and she's still recovering a day later.

Upon landing in Yangon, we discovered that we were sharing the tarmac with Air Force One and Two and were confined to the terminal while Obama and Hillary's delegation returned to their planes after meetings and speeches at Yangon University -not five minutes from where we would eventually find our hotels. We didn't get to see them but we were able to snap a few pictures of the planes and get a sense of the enthusiasm for their visit here. Whenever we mentioned to anyone that we were American, the reaction was always a gleeful " Obama!". Leaving the airport, the streets were lined with press, onlookers, police and soldiers. No American president had ever visited Myanmar, so this was quite an occasion and part of what seems to be a major refocus by the administration on this part of the world.

The drive into Yangon was a dramatic introduction to an overcrowded, polluted and neglected modern city - Bangkok minus glass towers, collapsing roads and sidewalks, overgrown railroad tracks and people spilling out of the truck-buses that seem to be the primary form of public transportation. Most vehicles seem to be spewing dirty diesel exhaust, so Yangon is one of those cities where your eyes burn. There are great avenues and parks and lakes. And on the periphery, long decaying blocks of apartment housing with small food and retail stalls on the ground floor. On the other hand, it was incredibly vibrant with lean-to tea houses, food vendors and small store-fronts lining every street, including many of the side streets. It is difficult to drive very far before you catch a glimpse of a gold leafed pagoda.



School Bus

The lack of attention from the government to the basic needs of society seems to have engendered a passionate and in some cases desperate culture of entrepreneurship. We were told that the average annual income in Myanmar is $500. Meanwhile a few cronies are making billions in construction, natural resources, hotels and airlines. Yet, in spite of the obvious hardship and the recent boom in the tourist economy, little in the way of a souvenir industry has sprouted in Yangon. There are a few children selling hand-painted postcards - something we would see to a much larger degree in the more touristed city of Bagan - but, for the most part, the retail stalls around the city seem very much focused on selling to natives. This quality of being both a real functioning city and its exotic vibrancy ultimately redeemed our impression of this city.

Myanmar (Burma, as (mis)named by the British) is at a crossroads. It has only recently emerged from a 20-year international boycott due to its oppressive government and persistent human rights violations. Aung San Suu Kyi has been released from house arrest and the National League for Democracy is participating in the government. The country is haltingly stumbling forward. It seems, at this point to have a foot in two worlds; one an isolated island that is idiosyncratic, inefficient and steeped in local traditions and another that is rapidly, if awkwardly, joining the international community.

Old Myanmar continues to operate on a cash economy that only accepts perfectly crisp American dollars, even as New Myanmar has rationalized a currency exchange that, only a year ago, saw an official exchange rate that was one tenth of what was available on the black market.

Old Myanmar drives on the right side of the road but with steering also on the right. This, we heard, is the legacy of a dictator who was told by a psychic to switch traffic to the right side of the street even though all the country's vehicles had been outfitted for the left. This produces an absurd but dangerous situation where drivers need a copilot to look out the left window to change lanes. However, the more cabs we took ($4 to anywhere in the city), the more we saw lefthand steering.

Old Myanmar has a time zone that is not 1 hour or 2 hours behind the rest of SE Asia but 1/2 hour. New Myanmar advertises WiFi at most hotels but Old Myanmar continues to experience regular network interruptions, not to mention power -outages. At one point all the power went out for a minute at the international airport terminal and there are generators all over the sidewalks of downtown. And, of course, New Myanmar is "swamped" with tourists even as Old Myanmar desperately tries to absorb them with a small number of updated hotels and a small fleet of turboprop airplanes.

Consequently, flying in Myanmar is a complicated affair while, at the same time, very necessary. Even though the distances are not particularly far by modern standards, the mountainous terrain and neglected infrastructure conspire to turn a trip that is 45 minutes by air into a 15 - 18 hour trip by land. Securing a flight requires handing over cash in person at an airline counter, making it difficult to book in advance unless you have hired a tour agency; who also require cash.

And when you show up with your dollar bills, they had better be in the kind of pristine condition most Americans are likely to see only for a high school graduation gift. Tears, writing, folds of any kind are enough to make our currency worthless even in a country where it is still coveted. The combination of this outdated booking system and Myanmar's newfound popularity presented a bit of a challenge for us.



Waiting - Myanmar style

During the 2-3 hours we were confined to the airport terminal during Obama's visit we set out to cobble together an itinerary that would connect us to the two other destinations within Myanmar we meant to visit - Ngapali Beach on the northwest coast and the UNESCO World Heritage site of Bagan. Out of the 3 flights necessary for our itinerary, we had reserved two but still had a crucial gap in one of our travel legs. And, upon landing, we discovered one had been cancelled.

What would have been a difficult situation in the U.S. seemed overwhelming when we first confronted it here. With nearly every flight in the country sold out we were faced with the real possibility of two very uncomfortable 18 hour trips via unreliable ground transport. We had remained open to the possibility of roughing it with our transportation by taking a bus or car where necessary. But almost everyone we spoke to told us not to attempt it. We now had nonrefundable hotel reservations in towns we had no realistic way to reach.

Fortunately, in Myanmar, the people seem to address the fallout from a frustrating system with kindness, calm and graciousness. In our case, we found a savior in the form of a ticket agent named Kyaw who took on the role of crisis manager, calling every airline in the country to try and secure us tickets for our itinerary. After making calls for nearly an hour and escorting us to various agents and offices, we finally had our flights. We got our first taste of what makes this country special - even with the inconvenience of 3 hours spent in the airport trying to arrange our travel plans, we felt our glass more than half full and incredibly fortunate to have any flights at all.



Kyaw, our air travel savior

Our first night in Yangon was a bit of a hazing. Like most of the flights in the country, nearly every decent hotel was booked. What was left was The Royal White Elephant - a Soviet-chic barracks of sorts with no windows, minimal air conditioning, and a crumbling bathroom. However, we did have plenty of florescent light, mosquitos and his and hers vintage vinyl Barkaloungers.




The Royal White Elephant Hotel

After settling in to our new digs, we set out to try Lonely Planet's top recommendation for classic Myanmar food - Aung Thuka. Being their Top Choice and in the wake of difficulties finding flights and a decent hotel, we fully expected the place to be swamped with Germans, French and Americans. Instead we found a family-run outdoor buffet serving stewed and fried mutton, chicken, pork and fish along with vegetables like watercress, corn pudding, cauliflower and tea leaf salad. Unfortunately, I was a bit premature in my stomach's recovery from our Bangkok burger to be venturing so deeply into Myanmar cuisine so dinner was cut a bit short.



Aung Thuka Restaurant

While we had gleaned hints of what is special and "worth it" about Myanmar, at this point, we had yet to be sold. The people are indeed exceptional in their hospitality and politeness. There are spectacular and surreal juxtapositions of spectacular pagodas with asphyxiating car exhaust, gangs of red-robed Buddhist monks next to crass billboard advertising, delicious and different food combined with the worry of food poisoning. But this first day had been hard for two westerners unacclimated to the Myanmar way of doing things.



On day two, we moved to much nicer digs at the Classique Inn in the Golden Valley area of Yangon. Golden Valley is an aging colonial era enclave filled with both deteriorating and brand spanking new walled villas. It is where most of the diplomatic community is located and apparently the wealthy of this very poor country. Nevertheless, the streets are still crumbling into muddy ruts, there are abandoned ruins and shanty lots and the occasional stray dog, though a lot fewer than in Thailand. The Classique was everything we'd expected and hoped, just as the White Elephant was everything we'd expected and hoped against - a lovely old 3-story family-owned villa that had been converted into a B&B with antebellum style pillars, teak floors, walls and ceilings . The lobby and rooms were cool, we were greeted with a welcome drink of lime juice and our room was spacious, tasteful and comfortable. This was just what we needed, as Carrie now faced a delayed reaction to the food poisoning I'd suffered a day earlier and decided to stay in and recover.  It was also the first place where I was able to try the national dish of Myanmar - a curried fish stew with noodles served for breakfast called Mohinga.  Delicious.



Mohinga - the national dish of Myanmar

Bogyoke Aung San (Scott) Market

I decided to venture out to try and find the Bogyoke Aung San Market, see the central old district, change money and get a sense of Yangon outside the relatively quiet residential area where we had been staying. My outing had a great moderating effect on my initial unfavorable impression of Yangon. It was still dirty and loud and chaotic but a more interesting character had begun to become evident. The market was a classic British style covered affair with rows of stalls selling everything from fresh vegetables to sweets to birds in cages to gems and bright colored cloth.

Besides my ultimately unnecessary objective of changing money in the back of the market, I was also looking for a classic Myanmar Longyi and white cotton shirt that most men seem to wear here and which were very similar to the attire Scott sported in Hong Kong and recommended while in Southeast Asia.

 I was particularly attracted to those made with Scottish-style tartan plaids that seemed to connect local attire to Myanmar's colonial past. I also was suckered into overpaying for some hand-painted cards and a fan. The seven-year-old girl who sold them to me was quite good at her job.



Very pleased after a great sale

As dark storm clouds began to gather, I left the market to explore the denser streets of the old part of Yangon down by the river. The streets narrowed and the goods being sold shifted from material and gems to puppies, dried and fresh seafood, meat, and large vats of what appeared to be chili-marinated cherry tomatoes but which we later discovered to be cherries. I wandered past blocks where clerical work - small stalls lined up to provide typing and transcription services -seemed to be the trade or and others where storefronts were running small printing presses. A block off the Strand - the Yangon riverfront - were cafe after cafe of men drinking tea. There seemed to be many more Muslim residents and halal food in this area. Most of the buildings were deteriorating (a word that is easy to overuse in describing Myanmar) but still barely showing their colonial glory. One building that was not having any trouble showing off its colonial glory, however, was The Strand Hotel, a landmark on the Yangon River that has hosted Rudyard Kipling, George Orwell and Somerset Maugham and continues to offer deluxe accommodations at a price equal to a year's average salary in Myanmar.

Gold is everywhere - particularly on the ubiquitous pagodas but also on the entire outside of a building and even the trunk of a tree.

Nowhere, however (perhaps in the world), is there more gold than at Shwedagon Paya - arguably the most important Buddhist shrine in Myanmar. After Carrie had the afternoon to recover, we went out to see this holy theme park in the center of the city. While there were certain rules of respect for sacred ground here, there also seems to be quite a bit of license in terms of commerce, preservation and use. Legs must be covered and shoes removed but entrepreneurship and neon enhancement are acceptable. Many come to pray to the Buddha but others treat the pagoda as a picnic destination. We didn't see anyone playing hacky sack but there was a guy reclining on the floor of a shrine listening to what sounded like a soccer game.

Post-Paya, we visited an expat (primarily French) destination to eat dinner - a hotel and restaurant around the corner from Classique Inn called Alamanda. It was completely occupied by European tourists drinking espresso, eating tagines and smoking.  It was stylish, comfortable (read, "sheltered") pretty delicious and definitely French. It was the only place in Myanmar (besides another French-run restaurant we visited in Bagan) where the ubiquitous cultural warmth of this country was stifled and a cool aloofness prevailed. Hmm, wonder why?

Ngapali Beach, Myanmar

November 21, 2012

Today we leave the chaos and pollution of Yangon for what we hope to be a respite in a fairly isolated but beautiful part of the country. Our destination is Ngapali Beach (pronounced like Napoli) in the northwestern Rakhaing district of the country which is adjacent to Bangladesh. As would become a pattern for us, there was a happy ending to what was a very uncertain departure from Yangon Airport. We were already reckoning with the loss of two days in Myanmar as a result of flight limitations when we were removed from our plane on the runway. As we climbed down from the slightly aged turboprop plane, we saw a gang of 10 or so peering into one of the engines. After 3 hours we were back on board taxiing towards take-off with not a small amount of apprehension. Finally, we were on our way with a huge sigh of relief. Myanmar engenders an appreciation for small triumphs that rarely occurs in countries where things seem to function better. 

Much of Rakhaing is really only accessible by plane or boat. It is separated from the rest of the country by a 600-mile mountain range that geologically is the southern tail of the Himalayas and includes 10,000 ft Mt. Victoria, Myanmar's second highest. There are overland routes but until recently (and perhaps still) they were not open to foreigners. Upon arrival in the country, we had had doubts about our ability to find a flight here and had inquired about driving. After all, the distance from Yangon to Ngapali on a map is hardly daunting -perhaps 150 miles. But as we flew over the jungle-covered mountains with not a sign of a road (or village) in sight, it became clear how necessary and fortunate this flight was. As we cleared the mountains, our plane soon reached the coast and we began to see a horizon filled with equally unsettled river delta, vast tidal lakes, miles of undeveloped beaches and mangroves and narrow fingers of islands, ridged in the center, covered with dense jungle and floating in the turquoise Bay of Bengal. It is reminiscent of the Caribbean from the air but with very little population.
  

We had a connection through the state capital of Sittwe. We had heard that there was ethnic strife in this part of the country but did not find out the details until we spoke to some people here the day before we left. Antagonism between Muslim and Buddhist residents had erupted into violence that had caused a large number of deaths and had driven many from their homes and as we found out later much of the state, including Sittwe, was under a state of emergency and closed to travel.

Landing in Thandwe, a town adjacent to Ngapali, at sunset, everything seemed peaceful.  We had arrived in a sleepy coastal enclave where farmers and fisherman were still able to conduct their livelihoods in much the way they had for the past 100 years. 




Classic airport shuttle

The villages along the coast are basically connected by a single dusty road where careening buses, bicycles and scooters vie for space.  Most of the houses were rough open-platformed huts with palm-thatched roofs.  There were a number of restaurants selling locally caught seafood cookies, soda, beer and the occasional craft.

Ngapali Beach runs through a number of villages but most of the area's beach resorts are clustered along a 1 mile stretch.  Our hotel - the Pleasant View - was at the very end of the resort strip; the last property before the fishing village of Jade Taw.  Its location was an ideal way to experience this part of Myanmar.  It was separated from the rest of the resorts - most of which were the classic walled compounds cut off from the local community - so it was uncluttered with tourists in beach chaises. 




Our beach bungalow 



The view

But it was also adjacent to a real functioning fishing community.  Every evening at sunset the men of the village would head out into the bay in their colorful longboats to catch fish and squid.  And every morning, the women would haul the catch up onto the beach.  The larger catches and squid would be sold to the local restaurants and resorts but most of the haul was small silver fish that were laid out on the beach to dry in the sun.  This seemed to be the community's cash crop and they supposedly had unlimited buyers in China.





Carrying the engine to longboat



Fishing Longboat


 

Laying out fish to dry in the sun

It is probably only a matter of a few years before this entire beach gets fully developed for tourism.  We were told that waterfront land was being sold for hundreds of millions of dollars anticipating an eventual infrastructure that would make it accessible.  But, for now at least, the original residents are still very much a part of the landscape.  One morning we were sitting on the beach when we saw some men pushing some large pigs out of an impossibly narrow longboat into the surf.  The pigs swam into the beach and then wandered around in the water for awhile before being herded onto a tuk-tuk truck.  We were told later that, in addition to taking advantage of waters that were much easier to navigate than local roads, the farmers like to clean and sterilize the pigs in the saltwater before delivering them to market.  It all made perfect sense but it was certainly a novel sight to see pigs at the beach.

The food in Ngapali was the first in Myanmar which we really loved.  Obviously, seafood is what you eat.  Our first night we tried the restaurant connected to the hotel.  The chef there was trying his hand at some adventurous cooking but was not really succeeding.  What was noteworthy from our meal here was its location.  The restaurant was out on an island, just off the beach from the hotel.  At low tide, one could roll up one's pant cuffs and wade out to the stone staircase that took you out to the dining area.  And when the tide was in, a rowboat would deliver you.



Island restaurant

The best dining was right on the beach in a row of grass shacks that served the most amazing seafood brought in each morning from the fishing village.  We walked by one morning and one of the proprietors pulled us into his shack where he showed us a red snapper and a strange version of a lobster that had come in that day.

 

It was kind of difficult to resist.

Earlier in the day, we met a Finnish guy who was a recent transplant to this relatively isolated Myanmar community and was running slightly more adventurous versions of the boat tours that were offered along the beach.  U Andy, as our Finnish captain called himself, had retired from the leather automotive upholstery design business and moved to Ngapali with his girlfriend.  He was building a traditional house on stilts in town and had purchased two longboats that he used to take tourists either to villages down the coast or for sunset cruises that we had been told we couldn't miss.



U Andy, First Mate & Carrie

Andy met us on the beach with a crew of 3 and a bottle or wine about a half hour before sunsent.   We headed straight out to the horizon, following the fishing boats.   Out on the water we found spectacular views of the beach with the mountains behind and a standing Buddha on one of the peaks.  The fishing boats were right next to us and we found ourselves floating right in the middle of the sun going down with colors we had never seen from land.

Once the sun had set, accompanying lightboats lit up up the water to attract fish and squid to the nets - perhaps not the fairest hunt but quite a novel sight.

After 3 days, it was time to leave the lazy beach life to visit the dusty plains of our only other Myanmar destination, Bagan.  I say "try" because we were again flying with uncertainty whether we would have seats on a stand-by flight.   We had to connect through Yangon, so at the point we left Ngapali we didn't know where we would be sleeping that night.

Bagan, Myanmar

November 24, 2012

With another nail-biting series of connections, we made our way from the northwest coast of Myanmar to the northern central plains, arriving in one of the most popular destinations for tourists in the country, Bagan.  Submitted (but yet to be accepted) for designation as a World Heritage Site to UNESCO in 1996, Bagan is the site of the earliest kingdom in Myanmar and contains over 2,000 pagodas, temples and stupas built from the 10th to 14th centuries as religious tributes to Theravada Buddhism.  While the seriously flawed efforts of Myanmar's military government to restore Bagan's pagodas in an architecturally sensitive manner have kept the city on UNESCO's "tentative" list, the city is undisputably awe-inspiring.

The constructions are primarily built from red brick that is very apparently a product of the dusty red plain on which the stupas sit.  They range in size from small solid monuments to towering elaborate cathedrals with multiple floors, passageways and alcoves to house painted and gold-leafed Buddhas in various poses.

Ananda Pahto



Young souvenir vendors - the foundation of the Bagan economy

  

Like much of the rest of Myanmar, Bagan is a very dynamic, contradictory and evolving place.  The city is simultaneously a sacred destination for Buddhists who come to meditate and worship while also being the country's top commercial tourist destination. 

  

 

There are double-decker tourist buses, luxury hotels and sunrise balloon tours. At the same time, most of the roads are still dirt and many residents maintain a sustenance standard of living. Oxen are widely used and some of the population are still herding goats among the temples.

  

To the degree that it can handle them, Bagan is "swamped" with international tourists and groups.  I should qualify, however.  Like much of the country, the huge increase of tourism in Bagan is relative.  The major sites, the hotels and the guidebook restaurants tend to be busy with tourists.  In fact, we were very lucky not just to have found a flight but to have found a room in town.  We got the last spot in an historic hotel called the Thande within the gates of historic Old Bagan.  It was built for the Prince of Wales in 1922 when the city was last enjoying a tourism boom and is situated on a bluff overlooking the Ayeyarwaddy River.  One of the great amenities of the hotel is that it is surrounded by pagodoas and you can sit by the pool and be surrounded by history.

Poolside at the Thande Bagan Hotel

On our first evening, we attempted to experience what was supposed to be the spectacular sight of the changing light from a good vantage at the top of the Shwesandaw Paya, a Mayanesque solid stupa with no interior but with high terraces and steep steps on each of its four faces. However, sunsets being the top draw for tour buses, we were not very successful. By the time we braved and muscled our way up the frighteningly crowded steps without tumbling down, we had missed most of the prime views.   

Shwesandaw Paya at sunset

And by the time we returned to the base, the last light of the day was waning, leading to a comic fiasco where we could not get the wheel locks of our rusted bicycles to open.  Fortunately, we had a gang of at least 10 local boys working on the project instantly.  When one of the boys finally met with success, a cheer went up and the awkward moment of compensation arose.  Fortunately, Carrie had been negotiating on the side with the self-appointed agent for the group, a 9 year-old girl. A price had been seet and all parties left satisfied.

We returned at 5:30 the next morning to a surprisingly vacant, cool and quiet observation post atop Shwesandaw to catch what we hoped would be at least as impressive a sunrise.  The early hour apparently weeded out the tour buses and with the company of only the occasional rooster and waking farmer below and a few other reverent tourists, we were treated to an unforgettable view of the sun as it came over the horizon and began heating the brick and gold surfaces of the pagodoas accross the plain.

Balloons over Bagan



With all the guides in the country reserved, we were left to our own devices in deciding which of the 2,300 stupas, pagodas and temples to visit.  So with Lonely Planet's list of top sites and our rickety bicycles, we set out from Shwesandaw to explore some of the major temples and to get lost along the sandy paths that wound through this huge collection of surreal architectural marvels.

  

 

By midday, the sun and temperature get to be quite strong.  Finding a tent to break and a temple with an interior becomes somewhat of a necessity.  On each of our two days in Bagan we chose one major temple where we spent some extended time in the cool corridors viewing the Buddhas of various shapes and sizes.  On day one, we visited the Htilominlo Temple on the road between Old Bagan and the main tourist and restaurant town, Nyaung U.   Before we had much time to consider the temple, we were approached by an 11-year old historical expert and guide named Sza Sza.  She told us that she knew of a spot where we could see the temple and the surrounding plain from great vantage point.  We entered a 2-story block of red bricks that appeared to be an incomplete pagoda and crawled up a low-clearance staircase to what almost seemed to be an observation deck.



History lesson with Sza Sza



Htilominlo Temple

Sza Sza proved to be knowledgeable, incredibly fluent in English and, ultimately, a very savvy salesperson.  We figured we owed her some kind of fee for giving us our 10-minute tour but when we asked what we owed her, we were given our first introduction to the Myanmar concept of reciprocal giving, an etiquette of good luck earned from giving money and a desire to avoid charity.  More than once, we were both offered and solicited for "lucky money".   Even if we were giving someone money, we were getting luck.  So there was no one-sidedness to the transaction.  In this case, the requested reciprocity was the purchase of something from Sza Sza's family's art and souvenir stall.  Her father was a sand painter who, like many residents of Bagan had been trained at a local art school to make traditional Buddhist images out of sand and pigment which could then be sold to tourists like us as a livlihood.  While we were not particularly in the market for a sand painting, we managed to find a couple that we thought both beautiful and that we felt would express our appreciation for Sza Sza's efforts.

 

Sza Sza's father, sand painter

On our second day, we again set out on our bicycles to find some of the other landmark temples in Bagan.  Barely out of the hotel, we were propositioned by even younger guides; a small gang of young boys who could barely sit on the seats of their adult bicycles but managed to follow us for a good half hour before they gave up on hiring us.  We did however end up with another inadvertant tour upon reaching the Dhammayanghi Pahto (or pagoda).  The largest pagoda in Bagan, Dhammayanghi had a haunted reputation, having supposedly been built by King Narathu in the 12th Century as atonement for the assasination of his father and brother.  He himself was ultimately killed before the temple could be completed but not before allegedly executing any mason who left enough space between the stones of the temple to insert a needle.

Sugarcane Juice

We learned all this history from our guide of the day, Thon.  We met over a glass of sugarcane juice under a tent outside Dhammayanghi Pahto.  He initially approached us to see if we were interested in buying some of his sandpaintings.  When we told him that we had already added some to our art collection, he dropped his sales pitch and sat down to chat with us.  After nearly an hour of visiting and sharing stories, Thon offered to show us around Dhammayanghi, no strings attached, and tell us all he knew about this cursed temple.  Well-versed in both the history of the temple and Buddhism in general, Thon proved a wonderful source of knowledge.  In the end, we felt we wanted to repay him and to take a souvenir from our visit.  We asked to see his portfolio and decided to purchase a sandpainting for our niece of the Happy Animals.  We also asked him to sign his painting, a request that produced quite a spectacle among the vendors gathered at the entrance to the temple.



Artist and guide, Thon

 Inside the Dhammayanghi Pahto

A crowd gathers







We thought our visit in Bagan would be too short but we found that two days of treking through the dusty landscape in the hot sun was the perfect amount of time to get the feel for this marvelous locale.  Yes, there were many temples that we had not been able to visit.  But there were also many other parts of Southeast Asia to visit as well.  So the following day we flew back to Bangkok to make the connection for our next destination, Laos.

Luang Prabang, Laos

November 28, 2012

Today we left Bangkok for the third time, this time to fly to Luang Prabang in the north of Laos at the convergence of the Mekong and Nam Kang Rivers. This will be the second of four locations in SE Asia we will visit that have been declared UNESCO World Heritage sites. Luang Prabang is a beautifully preserved French colonial mountain town that was spared the massive bombing campaign the United States inflicted on Laos during the Vietnam War - called the American War by most people here. It is reminiscent of Santa Fe or what I expect San Miguel d'Allende must be like. It combines history, art, religion, food and beautiful natural surroundings.   Besides world-class restaurants and very comfortable cafes, there are beautiful colonial-era buildings and older traditional Lao houses which have been turned into lodging.  There is a fantastic night food market and 33 Buddhist temples.

In fact, the Buddhist monks of Luang Prabang are a major component of the town's identity. One person we met told us the town's timetable is even driven by the monks and their traditional morning alms collection, a tradition in which we were able to participate. Every morning, the monks of the town wake up before dawn and proceed down the main avenue collecting stickyrice, sugarcane and sweets. On our first morning, we woke up at 5:30 to sit on the sidewalk and dole out balls of rice from our baskets into the monks' metal bowls. In spite of the increasingly touristy attraction of this daily ritual, we were assured that the monks still relied on the food given them by both residents and tourists every morning.




Rice Alms to the Buddhist monks of Luang Prabang at dawn

We were not quite sure what to expect and I kept seeking instructions from our Lao hosts at the 3 Nagas Hotel, who had prepared the rice for us to dole out. How much to give? Do we give to every monk? Can we look at them? Religious rites like this always seem to have very specific rules and we wanted to make sure we did it correctly. We sat down on cushions in front of our inn and waited. Just as the day started to glow we saw the first saffron robes down the block. Their procession came silently , covered brass bowls in hand, opening the tops as they passed so we could donate a ball of rice we'd pulled out of our rice baskets. At certain points, as we were fumbling for just the right portion or trying to unstick the sticky rice, a traffic jam would form behind the monk patiently waiting for us. Then those behind him would rush by without opening their bowls, no doubt thinking: losers.

With our early start, we had time for a leisurely breakfast with a couple new Australian friends, Lynda and Travis, we'd met during the procession and who took the above pictures of us; something I would have been far too inhibited to do.
We started at the Banneton Bakery up the road from our hotel and across the street from a Buddhist monestary.  

We had read that Banneton had exceptional croissants and wanted to try them. The day before we'd missed croissant hour but I'd had one of the best pastries ever - framboise and pistachio cream.



Le Banneton Cafe

  

Framboise and Pistachio Pastry from Le Banneton


Lynda & Travis

We also happened upon another daily ritual across the street from the cafe.

The croissants were delicious but the coffee left a bit to be desired so we went for round two back at our hotel.  The 3 Nagas is probably the most enjoyable place we have stayed so far. It is not luxurious but it has a perfect combination of character and competence without being fussy. It is located in a refurbished traditional Lao house like many we'd seen in Ngapali in Myanmar. It has an open-air ground floor and circular wooden staircase up to the 4 rooms upstairs.

The rooms have 18 ft ceilings and porches under deep eaves overlooking the main street. Across the street is the old colonial era section of the hotel and their fantastic restaurant. Our first day there we had a delicious introduction to what would be the most consistently great food of our trip - dried sesame buffalo and coconut steamed fish with scallions.



Dried sesame buffalo, satay and coconut fish steamed in banana leaves

There are two landmark high end restaurants in Luang Prabang - L'Elephant and Tamarind, both of which offer cooking classes. Unfortunately, we never made it to either but with the smaller meals we enjoyed at our hotel, less known restaurants, cafes and on the street we were more than dazzled. Highlights included a fish larb salad up the Mekong, chocolate croissants at our morning breakfast, spring rolls and coconut cream-filled pancakes at the night food market and lettuce rolls with our spontaneous host, Phon, on the terrace of her guest house.

We were walking by her place post-foot massage and pre-L'Elephant when she asked us to join her and a friend who were rolling lettuce rolls of pork, 2 kinds of mint, cilantro, cucumber, star fruit and chili. The sauce was the special part though - maybe fish sauce and rice vinegar based? Anyway, they were delicious and we rolled one after another with Lao Beer until we had effectively spoiled our appetite. Besides the memorable meal, which may have contributed to making me sick again, we had the rare chance to sit down with an English-speaking Lao and get a perspective on the town, the country, and attitudes towards Americans after what our military did to their country. Between 1964 and 1973, the US reportedly dropped bombs on Laos every 8 minutes even though it was officially neutral in response to its allowing the North Vietnamese military to travel through the northern and eastern parts of the country. This amounted to millions of tons of ordinance carpeted around the countryside, one third of which never exploded and which continues to injure and kill Lao to this day. There are 12 bomb disposal teams working around the country but at the rate they are working it will take decades, perhaps a century to clear it all. Phun told us that the older generation that lived through that period are still angry at the US but many people born after the war are more forgiving even as they continue to live with the legacy.

The Project for Lao

The old part of Luang Prabang where we stayed is on an elevated peninsula that looks down on the two mud-colored rivers that surround it.  Farms line the riverside in terraces during the dry winter season, growing peanuts, sweet potatoes, beans, cucumbers and greens until the river floods the fields in March. 

The banks are steep and on our second day we descended them to take a boat tour up the Mekong to visit the the Buddhist shrine in the Pak Ou Caves.

Mekong Riverboat with our guide, Phuy

We meandered up the river, surrounded by the greenest most unspoiled landscapes we'd seen in Asia to date.  There were periodic longboats cruising past us but we felt fairly in our own like a scene out of the African Queen. Mist and sharp peaks behind the occasional village and cultivated riversides. 

Upon reaching the caves, you climb up a stone staircase into a gash in the face of a cliff and inside there are hundreds of Buddhas that have been deposited, some hundreds of years old. We were escorted up the Mekong by our very serious guide, Phay, who gave us even more guilt-inducing information on American unexploded bombs in Laos.




Pak Ou Caves

After climbing up Pak Ou Caves we had another fantastic meal on the side of the river where we enjoyed a fresh fish larb and another Lao coffee, something I started to overindulge in, while in Luang Prabang.



Fish Larb

Kuang Si Falls, Laos

Day 3 in LP, we decided to rent a scooter to go see a waterfall outside of town where there were apparently elephant rides. We picked up our bike and after some getting used to the non-clutch shifting started driving up into the mountains. We asked directions right outside of town and apparently either missed our turn or were directed to the other falls. An hour and a half later we came to a park entrance at the end of the road.

There was a tourist market selling food and clothes where we parked and then entered what we learned was Kuang Si Falls park. The lower section served as a sanctuary for bears that have been threatened with extinction all around Asia due to poaching.

Free The Bears

Gallery of Rogues

Passing through the bear sanctuary, we found ourselves in a tropical forest with small streams running between palm trees.  Except for the foliage, this could have been any number of trails in the Catskills.  But as we climbed higher. the water began to turn a bright turquoise.  Clearly, we were no where near home.  What emerged at the top was the king of all swimming holes - beautiful falls, terraces overflowing with opaque turquoise water that looked like it had to be landscaped.  Near the top, the pools got larger and there were places for swimmers to change as well as a ledge and rope swing from which to jump.  At the very top, the entire setting was capped by a picture-perfect tropical waterfall. 

Walking away from this scene without getting wet was one of the more difficult things we had to resist on this trip but we had been warned by an infectious disease doctor who outfitted us in multiple vaccinations, not to swim in any fresh water or we'd be risking all manner of ugly parasites.  So we tromped back down the hill to head back to Luang Prabang.

We had heard that every night there was an amazing night food market off the main street in LP.  We had already been very undisciplined about consuming food prepared under slightly less than perfect hygeine but when we started walking down the alley with small stalls I knew that I, at least, would be pulling out the stops on trying everything.  There were individual specialties being prepared like gyoza, spring rolls, buffalo jerky and then there were enormous buffets of sides and fish and meat that could be piled on for $3.  There were butchers and fishmongers and fruit vendors.  We ended up trying the gyozas, spring rolls, and my favorites - coconut pancakes, a very successful rendering of Danish ebelskivers.  I think I ate a dozen.

Fresh spring rolls

Coconut Pancakes

Vietnam

Hanoi

December 4, 2012

Today we left Hanoi after what turned out to be a far too abbreviated visit. We arrived 3 days ago to a cold winter downpour that conjured the opening sequence to Blade Runner. We had been warned about the infamous cab driver scams from Hanoi Airport so we were perhaps overly sensitized to being ripped off.   After an hour of wandering through what turned out to be a bigger metropolis than we expected, we arrived in the Hoan Kiem district of Hanoi in the Old Quarter. We checked into an old townhouse of a building that would not have been out of place in the West Village and had been turned into a "boutique" hotel. We had a balcony overlooking Au Trieu Street next to St. Joseph's Cathedral in a corner of the Old Quarter that is currently quaint, edgy and hip.



St. Joseph's Cathedral




In front of our hotel

 

Street cuts on Au Trieu

It is not unlike our old neighborhood in New York where narrow streets intersect in non-grid patterns and it is easy to lose one's sense of direction. The sidewalks - even in the pouring rain - are packed with kids sitting on small plastic stools under dripping awnings consuming beer, tea, Pho, and, on one particular corner, bags of sunflower seeds. The energy here is unlike any Asian city or culture we have encountered thus far. There is loud and enthusiastic discussion and laughter. Motorscooters are shooting by relentlessly from both directions, disregarding signals, street direction and to a certain degree, pedestrians.

Hanoi's reputation for difficult street crossing is deserved but perhaps a bit overblown. Yes, the rivers of scooters that roll down the avenues or the steady streams that zip down the alleys require attention and if you wait until there is a break in the traffic you will never get across the street. But, there is a technique for crossing just as there is for riding with no traffic control.

We had our first chance to test our skills our first afternoon in Hanoi when we set out to find a coffee bar we had read about in the back of a dress shop and up four steep flights of stairs.  It seemed the only thing they did serve was coffee - both the famously strong drip on top of a pool of sweetened condensed milk and their specialty - egg white cappucino.  They also served quite a spectacular view of Hoan Kien Lake and the neighborhood.





Through the dress shop and past the caged birds



into the courtyard



up 4 flights of stairs



to one of the best views in Hanoi

and a great cup of eggwhite cappuccino.

After checking out the view, we decided to get a little more into the intense street scene of Hanoi.  This, of course, required crossing the street, a rite in this city whose reputation far preceeded our confronting it and was a source of just a little anxiety.



Crossing the Street in Hanoi

Watch Carrie try crossing the street

If one walks with decisiveness and alertness and dives right into traffic, it is possible to reach the other side without getting hit. Hesitation, doubling back,or running could be disastrous, however, as the potential for a pileup with this many scooters is awesome. Everyone has a scooter in Hanoi. It may be the preeminent aspect of life here; perhaps even trumping the ubiquitous Pho stands on every street. Or the famous Vietnamese coffee. Or the French colonial architecture which, unfortunately is increasingly endangered by new development. We've seen 4-5 passengers, comically large bundles, school children without helmets (sometimes two at a time), full-sized dogs and cages of birds or pigs being carried on scooters. 



24-hour commuting



Picking the kids up from school
 

Pigs



Ducks

What is amazing is that 20 years ago, they didn't even exist here and it was all bicycles.  What also didn't exist were stores, cars, fashion, food. The arrival of western style commerce here is fairly complete, though the government still steps in to manage when it benefits certain people.   In spite of what is officially supposed to be a socialist/communist government, there is obvious wealth and disparity here. We saw Bentleys, BMWs, glitzy bank branches, fancy French restaurants as well as old women selling fruit and bread and Chinese schlock to avoid starvation. The system here in Vietnam appears to be one of crony commu-capitalism - perhaps on a level of corruption and injustice that transcends China and might more closely resemble Myanmar but at a further stage of development. We have heard that Russia, Ukraine and their gangster-driven business model have been an influence on the Vietnamese economy. The knowledge that graft, arbitrary and uneven justice, and complete lack of a social safety net that denies protection, education, and healthcare to everyone but a privileged minority puts a certain pall over what is a very exciting place.

Gerry at Hanoi Cinemateque

Our contact here in Hanoi is Gerry Herman, an old friend of Carrie's family from the Guilderland years of the 70s.  After a life of multiple careers and globe trotting, he has been living in Hanoi now for 20 years, dedicating the past 10 to bringing the joys of film to Vietnam. Down a long corridor without any sign indicating its presence, is a courtyard surrounded by deteriorating colonial balconies that provides the perfect setting for Hanoi Cinematheque, a venue that shows art and mainstream films from around the world to a primarily expat community.

 

Gerry runs what is essentially an underground film society here which operates off the radar in many ways but, at the same time, seems to be the epicenter of international film in Vietnam. Cinematheque has become a social gathering place for the expatriate community and is run as a non-profit private club with an adjoining cafe and restaurant. In addition to films and festivals, there are regular events and speakers. During the 3 days we were in town, we went to two screenings followed by Q&A with people involved in the films. The first night was a screening of Oliver Stone's Heaven & Earth, a dramatic bio about Le Li Hayslip, a native of Vietnam who had suffered greatly during the Vietnam war, married an American soldier, moved to San Diego, been a great financial success and wrote a book about her life. She now does aid work for her home country through a foundation she founded.

The second night, Gerry screened a film by Danish director, Asger Leth, whose film, Man on a Ledge Carrie and I had seen right before leaving New York. He was screening Ghosts of Cite Soleil, a documentary he'd done before going Hollywood. Both screenings were followed by fantastic and lively questions and comments from both guests. As a result of this amazing institution Gerry has created, he seems to be a significant connector of people in Hanoi, the man to meet when in town and a patron for many people following dreams the way he has.

Green Vietnam

One of those people is Gerry's friend Quang, ,who has built an incredible model for green agriculture in Vietnam called Green Vietnam.    Located outside the town of Tuyen Quang and a little more than 100 miles northwest of Hanoi, Green Vietnam is a farm and eco lodge about halfway to the more touristed Sa Pa.  Even before we left the US, Gerry had recommended we make a visit to this place. While the distance was not that far, a combination of traffic and road conditions made our trip about 5 hours via private car. This was the both the "fast" route and the "comfort" route.

It took us through suburbs, an industrial ring and what proved to be a a fairly wide layer of towns and villages with farms, small shops and restaurants that, while not particularly attractive, showed us another corner of the country.

Like Hanoi, the suburbs and villages are quite busy with new building. There seems to be a distinct style of Vietnamese house that takes full advantage of the small lots even in areas where settlement is minimal. They are basically narrow towers of three or four stories; townhouses without the town.

 

Roadside shoe store

We only reached the true countryside right before arriving at our destination.These rural parts of Vietnam, once we left the suburbs, showed a notable contrast to what we'd seen in Thailand and Myanmar.

There seems to be greater attention paid to litter even as development is fairly rampant. The rural setting has done little to cut down on the scooter traffic, however. The steady stream of them is almost as consistent, if not as relentless, as Hanoi. They negotiate with buses, trucks, cars and bicycles on rutted asphalt and dirt roads, constantly communicating with honks. Our drive to the country was accompanied by a regular soundtrack of horns. Our driver used his horn on average about 3 times a minute.



The main pavillion - diningroom, living room & kitchen

We were a little trepidatious as we pulled up to the farm and it was evident this would be a true farm-stay on a functioning farm, eating and living with the family. This was something that neither of us had done before. Our hosts, Quang and Huen were welcoming but a little shy. There was a bit of awkwardness as we realized we would have to work with a language barrier with everyone but Quang.  And while the accomodations were exactly what one would expect in a farmstay and were, in many ways, luxurious, the combination of the cold weather and a bungalow that was open to the air took a little getting used to.

 

The dining area



There is a central outdoor stilted pavilion where meals are prepared and where we dine. A delicious lunch of rice, ginger chicken, pork stew, taro, and green beans and tomatoes is made upon our arrival. I am still suffering a bit from digestion problems so I should have moderated. However, I have been semi-fasting for 24 hours so I stuffed my face. Our hosts here are the head of farm and his family - Quang, his wife, Huen, their 11 year old son and a three-month old daughter as well as Quang's two brothers Mien and Qwi.

There are six dogs, three kittens, a fresh litter of puppies under the woodshed and chickens. On our second day, Carrie noticed one of the puppies not moving and we feared it hadn't made it. Quang, went and retrieved it and the rest of the puppies and brought them over to the fire to warm up and revive.

Puppies and peanuts warming by the fire

Our bungalow is a marvel of sustainable design in the same vein as the rest of this beautiful farm. It is a traditional style for Southeast Asia, if not this particular region. We are situated on a hillside in the center of a mango orchard.  Raised on stilts, it's a one-room building made of acacia and bamboo with a thatched palm roof.

The house is basically open to the air between the top of the walls and roof and windows have shutters but no screens.  This proved not to be a problem, however, as bats would fly back and forth under the ridge of the roof consuming all the bugs.

The shower, compost toilet and sink each have their own side rooms that are also open to the outside. This makes for a slightly chilly night but I certainly prefer it to the hot summer with its mosquitos. The engineering of the plumbing, water heater, septic is very impressive, particularly for someone who has an intention but no formal training or even reference. Quang is an amazing example of being able design and construct using common sense and word of mouth. He says his reading ability is limited to a 5th grade education so he is not able to refer to books or buildings on green building and has built this place with virtually no previous experience except his upbringing in another agricultural area of Vietnam. And this was only for the first eleven years of his life, after which he ran away to Hanoi. It sounds like he had a rough time of it in the city, even as he learned a lot.   Living on the street, working in restaurants and staying out of the way of corrupt cops.



Quang and his oranges

The farm is 60 hectares (about 150 acres) and includes orange, papaya, pomelo, mango, lemon, banana and avocado trees among the 80,000 that Quang has planted . There is also sugarcane, bamboo, corn and vegetables, as well as 200 pigs and plentiful chickens who roam the cultivated and forested property freely. Everything is cultivated organically and harmoniously, utilizing natural pesticides and complementary planting while integrating the chicken and pig farming for feed and fertilizer.

There is also extensive irrigation that was installed throughout the hilly farm using pumps powered by methane from the pig sty or rice husk fuel. No power equipment was used to build the farm but Quang employs up to 50 people during planting or harvesting season. The intention was to make the farm a completely self-sustaining and for the most part he seems to have accomplished it.

Our second day, like many of our stops, has settled us nicely into our surroundings. We took an extensive walking tour of the farm and met the senior member of the community Mr. Bai(?) who hosted us for green tea in his mini store. Quang showed us where Mr. Bai had cut his trigger finger off to avoid fighting anymore in the 60s. Throughout this visit to Green Vietnam, we have been struck by how familiar it is even in its foreignness.

There are so many similarities to our valley and our friends back in Halcott. Every minute we think of a friend who would so love this place - the people who live here, the work being done on this farm, the pursuit of a quality of life that is missing from most modern lives. The people take care of the animals and the land and the animals and land take care of the people.



Washing the cassava

Besides us, there seems to be a steady stream of visitors to the farm from guests on tours to friends from Hanoi to Quang's 80-year-old guitar master.  As I type this, Carrie is jamming with him and seems to be an expert in Russian/Roma/Flamenco style guitar as well as classical. For much of their playing, he seemed to be trying to teach but Carrie was able to get him to join her in a round of Red River Valley and to play along with her song, Paradox.

Len Thak (Falls)

Day 3 at Green Vietnam brought an entirely new perspective, as we had made plans for a "motorbike" (what they call a moped-like scooter) excursion to visit Len Thak or Len Falls.

Before we set out we had breakfast with some French guests who were staying the night and were here to try and find the site where their father/husband had been killed during the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in the 1950s. We were able to practice a little French, something less prevalent here than I expected. Gerry had told us only the very old people speak French, some of the middle-aged speak Russian and the current generation of school children are learning English.

I rode on my own and left Carrie to travel with our guide, Huan. Quang recommended it for the first part of our journey, which took us through deep mud and puddles that I little experience navigating. It was almost comical as our wheels were 1/3 underwater at some points.

Once we'd escaped from the muddy exit of the farm, we started driving on paved roads through small towns much like those we'd seen traveling from Hanoi. More marvels of balance were witnessed as we saw motorbikes carrying bundles of wood, bananas, taro and sheet metal. We drove on a main two-lane "highway" for about an hour where we shared the road with homicidal dump trucks and buses who shot past bikes and scooters blasting their horns and barely moving to the left to pass. It didn't help or confidence that Quang had told us the day before about the huge number of deaths resulting from these trucks when they were building a highway to his town in central Vietnam. The landscape became more dramatic as we drove past huge, what they call, " karsts"- jagged rock-like mountains jutting out of the flatlands and covered in tropical foliage.

Our guide, Huan, was a man of few words and no English ones but he was very confidence-inspiring as Carrie's chauffeur and he was generous with his smiles. About two thirds of the way through our trip, he pulled us over at a restaurant next to a river for lunch.



I think...



I'll have...



the pig's heart.

It was only about 11:30 but what better time to enjoy a plate of pig heart and onions. I luckily took my first bite before the meat was identified so had an easier time going back for a few more bites. Carrie was not as fortunate but has always been braver in the exotic food department. We also had some delicious sautéed cabbage and what Huan told us was chicken. It was basically like little omelets so don't know if there was chicken in them or he was confusing the chicken with the egg. After washing lunch down with a more familiar Oreo, were back on our bikes, now heading up a beautiful and much quieter dead-end valley that took us past beautiful traditional stilted and thatched bungalow buildings that were like those at Green Vietnam. Less beautiful was all the slash-and-burn logging going on but the drive was still very enjoyable as we zipped past oxen and women in rice paddies, palm trees and open-air pool games.

Traditional stilt house

Open-air pool

When we arrived at the falls, it was time for Vietnamese coffee - no milk this time but plenty of sugar for my taste. It is brought to you already sweetened but with a sugar bowl and, to my taste buds, conjures a carmel macchiato. Len Thak seems to be some kind of park, though there was no readable signage, and we took our afternoon coffee under a raised lodge with a couple of monkeys in a cage. It is an exotic, if sad, thing we have seen a few times, along with caged birds, since we have been in Asia. We tried to feed them bananas but they threw them down in favor of some kind of junk food chip in a plastic bag that Huan brought over to feed them.

 

Len Thak was much less touristed than our previous waterfall excursion in Laos. We were the only ones there and the guards at the park's gatehouse were napping when we pulled up. These were similar to the falls in Laos, though, in that there was a limestone like surface you could climb even with thin sheets of water poured over them. There were three tiers but we decided to limit our hike to the second.

The only other person we saw up there was a sole logger working by himself to push individual logs slowly down the falls with a handmade axe and a long bamboo pole. We were again presented with a picture-postcard swimming hole that we were too intimidated to take advantage of thanks to our infectious disease doctor back home who planted all sorts of bacterial fears in our heads. So another beautiful turquoise pool went unused.

Our last night here was a sort of feast. Three French guys - friends of Quang - had arrived the night before and a pig had been killed for dinner. We were offered the chance to witness this but were mercifully away while the deed was done. Quang and his family are very sensitive to the quality of their animals' lives but they have no problem eating the meat they raise. The entire pig was being cooked when we arrived back for our ride.

Everything was laid out separately in areas and bowls - brain, entrails, ribs - next to an open fire. . The barbecue smell as we walked down to dinner was both intoxicating and familiar. After our earlier lunch of heart, we were looking forward to some good old fashioned ribs or chops. Alas, while the ginger marinade was delicious, the cuts tonight were fat and organs, so we had dainty portions.

December 7, 2012

Today we drive back to Hanoi to meet up with Marc Wolf for a week. He made a spontaneous decision to join us for a week in Vietnam. It was a lovely mellow departure from Green Vietnam. The boys were all asleep after a night partying together so we didn't get to say goodbye to Quang. But Huen greeted us with eggs, peasant bread toast and coffee that was now fine-tuned to our individual tastes. On top of a perfect travels breakfast, she sent us off with a gift of her amazing orange marmalade and longan flower honey.



Huen brings a delicious breakfast

and sends us off with some of her longan honey

Our departure was a little crazy. Quang had told us that they would arrange to get us to the bus station a few miles away and it would be via motorbike. We had barely succeeded in driving through the mud without any parcels the day before so we really didn't believe that this plan was possible. Nevertheless, come 8:00, our 30 lb packs were balanced behind the handlebars of two motorbikes and we were each balanced behind our respective 100 lb drivers and we set out for town past buffalo-drawn carts and mist-covered fields.

Placing our confidence and lives in the hands of our drivers, we made it most of the way down the rutted muddy road with only a couple dismounts for the deepest mud. We missed our first connection but a few kilometers further we connected with our lavish long-distance bus. Frilly curtains, quilted headrests and video entertainment welcomed us aboard. Our conductor cleared a couple passengers out of seats for us and we settled I. For the 5 hour ride to Hanoi with Lawrence Welk-style pop musical numbers on the video screen and constant honking. Nice to be on the largest vehicle son the road at least.

Hanoi

 



Hanoi Opera House


As often happens in trips like this, foreignness becomes relative and returning to Hanoi felt a bit like a familiar stomping ground. We had left Green Vietnam with enough time to check back in to our hotel next to St. Joseph's Cathedral, find Marc, arrange our travel plans for our last week in Asia and still make it to the Hanoi Opera House for an 8:00 performance of Beethoven's Pastoral by the Hanoi Symphony . The opera house is a beautiful 19th Century gem located on what could be a European plaza that, more than anything else we experienced in Hanoi, harked back to the city's colonial past. In addition to the Symphony, we also got to see one of Vietnam's classical music prodigies.



Joined by Marc Wolf

The rest of our trip, up to this point, had been only loosely planned and completely unbooked. We had tried to make some decisions and reservations before we left for Green Vietnam but had left too early in the morning and hoped to find some kind of Internet connection that never materialized when we got up there. Thus, upon our return, we had about 12 hours to figure out what we were going to do for the next week. We ran around to a couple of places where we could go online and by the end of the evening had reservations for a cruise on Ha Long Bay and a house on the beach in Hoi An.

Ha Long Bay

December 8, 2012

Our decision to visit Ha Long Bay on the Gulf of Tonkin in the North China Sea was ambivalent from the outset. On the one hand, it seemed to be a no-brainer. The pictures we had seen in the guidebooks and the travel posters showed the spectacular sight of huge rock islands projecting out of the sea. UNESCO had declared it a World Heritage Site. A number of friends had said we must see it.

  On the other hand, we had read many warnings of scams, bait and switches, and dangerous delapitated boats. Other friends had said it was a cheesy conveyor belt of tourists with tacky cruise boats traveling in caravan and clustered around the same spots.  Nevertheless, we decided to take a couple of chances at this stage of our trip. The first was to go for it and actually go to Ha Long Bay and the second was to book the extended 2-night/3-day tour where we believed we could avoid the masses on the quick day trips and get a much better impression of the place. If it was disappointing we'd be stuck for three days. We chose a company called HandSpan that received Lonely Planet's seal of approval.

In spite of the fact that seeing Ha Long Bay requires accepting the type of organized tour that we generally shun, the visit ultimately proved to be one of the highlights of our trip to date and we'd definitely recommend anyone coming to Southeast Asia put it on their itinerary and to make sure that they take two nights instead of the typical 1 night that most tourist choose.

Our journey began with a 5 hour bus trip to the port city of Ha Long where we were loaded on what they called the tender, a pontoon boat shuttle that took us to the Treasure Junk. I had a moment of worry that we were boarding the S.S. Cornball when the captain and crew greeted us, beating a ceremonial drum and wearing what at first looked like a Richard Nixon mask. As we got closer, however, we saw that he was wearing a traditional paper mache mask and discovered this was to be the last semi-goofy attempt to entertain the tourists.

For the remainder of our trip, we found the crew to be gracious, friendly and professional, maintaining a perfect balance between attentiveness and leaving us to ourselves. The boat was everything we were told - a tasteful, well-maintained, small - but spacious - cruise ship in the shape of a junk. There were three levels with about 10 cabins on the lowest level, a dining room and deck on the second level and a sun deck on the top. The rooms had a kitschy nautical theme but were the most comfortable and updated we'd had in Vietnam yet. They also had two large picture windows that were right above the water level so you could sit in bed and just watch the spectacular scenery slip by.

View from our room

Ha Long Bay itself was jaw-dropping from the moment we left the port and it just got more impressive as we steamed deeper into denser clusters of islands in the center of the nearly 3,000 small islands that make up this special spot. There are so many superlatives one could use to describe this place, I'll try not to go overboard. The water is the flattest ocean I've ever been on - glassy to the point of feeling like one is on land. The color transitions throughout the day from emerald to turquoise as the fog and sun trade places and the temperature is warm enough to swim in like a lake in summer. The drama of the constantly shifting scenery never got boring of the three days we were on the water.

One would think that the novelty of floating through a field of monolithic granite slaps that appeared to have been dropped from the sky - as Vietnamese legend maintains - would grow tired after a couple of hours. But something about the scale, the placement, the variety and the overall hypnotic tone of Ha Long kept us awed until the minute we left and my itchy camera finger unable to relax trying to capture the experience.

 On our first day, there was only one other group of three on board making the passenger roster a total of 6 with a crew of 15 attending to us. We felt like we were essentially on a private yacht. Fortunately, our travel mates were perfectly copacetic - a married couple of two English women living in Bangkok and their father, a retired professor from England. Sophie, Jo and David only stayed for one night so our second day, we were the only passengers in the care of our favorite guide of the trip, Khuong, and the crew.
 

Paddling the still waters of Ha Long

Marc W. & Khuong

Sophie & Jo

In addition to the nighttime activity of squidding, primary form of recreation in Ha Long Bay is kayaking. The afternoon we arrived, we checked into our rooms, changed and were immediately placed in double kayaks to make our acquaintance with the Bay up close and personal. As I noted, the water is impossibly calm for the ocean. The preponderance and density of the rock islands form a very effective water and windbreak that seems to preclude the formation of any waves; or even ripples most of the time. So paddling a kayak is an easy, even relaxing, endeavor. We paddled around close to the boat as the sun set, admiring the sheer cliffs of the islands and numerous caves carved into their walls.

The occasional fishing boat or round floating basket that seemed to be the skiff of choice in the area would slowly pass by. There were few other cruising boats and no loud or fast recreational craft evident.

Just prior to dinner, Carrie and Marc decided to take a swim, floating on their backs in dead calm buoyant water of the South China Sea. The cheesy over-touristed Ha Long Bay that we'd been warned about seemed to have taken the day off or been grossly exaggerated.

Carrie, Khuong and Marc at dinner on Treasure Junk

Our meals on board, which we had hoped would change our fairly unimpressive experience of Vietnamese cuisine so far continued to underwhelm us. they were not terrible but neither were they memorable. Nevertheless, like our dining on the beaches of Thailand and Myanmar, the fact that we were enjoying Pho, and green papaya salad, and spring rolls and fresh seafood taken from the water where we we cruising instead of the bland institutional food often served in such an awe-inspiring location was not lost on us.

We began Day 2 of our cruise at 6:45 in the morning with Tai Chi on the forward deck. Led by a porter who moonlighted as a Tai Chi master, all 6 of us passengers moved through the positions as an impossibly beautiful backdrop slid slowly past us. It is impossible to describe but it felt like a cross between a spectacle in Star Wars, the setting of a Greek legend a scene taken from a motivational poster.

Post-breakfast, we said good-bye to our fellow passengers who'd only signed on for the one-night plan and congratulated ourselves on our decision to stay longer. Khuong, transferred us to a smaller day boat where we cruised to another location in the bay and kayaked through tunnels that ran all the way through some of the islands into isolated lagoons that were contained on all sides by sheer cliffs of rock and accessed only by a single narrow tunnel. We saw monkeys and possibly some kind of lemur climbing on the tree-covered cliffs and encountered a line fisherman and his family paddling a rather large basket boat through a pretty narrow dark tunnel.

Lunch proved to be a big improvement from the day earlier and a single white-clothed table with three places was set up for us. We had our first bottle of Vietnamese wine - from Da Lat - and actually landed on one of the islands. We were meant to have idle time sitting on one of the rare sand beaches but instead climbed to the peak (in flip flops) to get a birds-eye view of our surroundings before heading back to the main boat for the evening.  At this point, we came to the end of our private cruise as 10 other passengers came on board.  Carrie decided to take another swim.

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Our third day just left us a morning which was dedicated to taking us on a tour of a floating fishing village. The village in its current incarnation of was actually a fairly recent development that was sponsored by the government and consisted of clustered floating docks with small wooden bungalows built on them. The fishing families that made their livelihoods in Ha Long Bay had previously been living on their fishing boats - oval basket-like vessels that we propelled by long oars in a manner similar to gondolas in Venice.

We were told by Khuong that the government had decided to take steps to clean up the bay after the area had been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site and that part of their approach had been to transfer families living on boats to these floating villages in an effort to curb litter and pollution. At one point, Marc asked if he could try rowing our boat. With 6 people on board, steering a basket proved a bit more difficult than it appeared but he eventually got a pretty good hang of it. We paddled through a number of small bays, past villagers cooking breakfast and swinging babies in hammocks on the porches of their floating homes. 

Our tour ended at a pearl farm where floating buoys suspended cages of oysters that had been seeded with small pieces of coral that formed the foundation for pearl formation. The success rate for useable pearls was about 3% of the seeded oysters and and it took 2 years for a fully-formed pearl to be produced.

Pearl farm

After our visit to the floating village it was time to head back to Ha Long harbor, get on our bus for the 5 hour bus ride back to Hanoi, and get to the airport for our flight down to Hoi An.

Hoi An, Vietnam

December 10, 2012

The town of Hoi An, halfway down the coast of Vietnam, had been on our list of possible destinations since before we left the U.S.   Honestly, I had never heard of it until I started researching the trip. However, it continued popping up among recommendations for Vietnam. Like Ha Long Bay and Ankor Wat, it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site due to its well-preserved historic town center. Located a few miles inland from the South China Sea, Hoi An is located along the Thu Bon River in the middle of the country. The city of Danang, famed for its R&R destination China Beach, is about a half hour north and a couple hours further is the former demilitarized zone that used to separate the North and the South.

 

Hoi An used to be a major trading port before the late 19th century when the river access it provided to the sea became blocked by silt. The impact was the elimination of Hoi An's broader relevance which essentially froze it in time. The most recent buildings in the town center are from this time and there are quite a few others from the early 19th and 18th centuries. When UNESCO declared the old town center a heritage site in the early 1990s, many buildings were designated historical and turned into museums.

There are former stores, temples, houses and assembly halls that now are part of a town-wide tour circuit. Different from the US, however, is the fact that a number of the residents of these former private homes continue to live in hidden corners of the buildings. It is not clear whether the government confiscated the buildings or not but tours at a few of the sites we visited were conducted by people whose families had lived in the buildings for generations and who now occupied a couple rooms in the back and seemed to make a living selling souvenirs.

The streets of Hoi An almost look like an historic European village combined with and American Western town. Houses are beautifully built out of teak, with courtyards, balconies and antique furniture in most of them. During the day, streets are closed to motorized traffic and tourists descend on much of the old quarter which is primarily made up of souvenir shops, restaurants and tailors.

Souvenirs everywhere

One of the many tailors in Hoi An

Like so many of the tourist destinations, the ubiquity of souvenir and chachke shops tended to numb our desire to purchase much during our travels.  Most of the goods being offered were mass-produced and each store sold essentially the same things.  One that did not and which drew us in was a gallery selling original Vietnamese propaganda posters from the 60s through the 80s when the country was trying to stand on its own against the United States.  With slogans like, "Colonialists, International Traitors, Think Carefully Before You Take Vietnam" or "An inch of Land is an Ounce of Gold. Our Duty is to Plant as Many Vegetables as Possible", they were difficult to resist.  However, we did opt for less belligerent images and slogans.

Shopping for propaganda

Our choices:

"Pig Farms have reached a production of a pig per hectare"

"For Our Future Generations"

Aside from history, the primary attractions of Hoi An are its custom tailors and its fantastic food. A few local celebrity chefs have established followings and multiple restaurants that draw foodies from around the world. Most of these have taken local cuisine and fancied it up for the international culinary tourist.  Nevertheless, we enjoyed some of the best food of our entire trip while we were in Hoi An. Ban Bao or "White Rose" dumplings stuffed with shrimp, Cao Lau and carmel fish and pork are some of the local signature dishes we tasted at restaurants like Morning Glory, Hai Cafe and White Sail. The bakery and patisserie, Cargo, made the best pain au chocolat and breakfast cinnamon rolls - even surpassing what we had tasted in Luang Prabang and we succeeded in having breakfast there nearly every morning.

Cargo's famous White Rose dumplings

Breakfast of Champions - Pho, French pastries & Vietnamese coffee

Crab in tamarind sauce

We had originally intended to try and stay in the historic quarter of Hoi An but were too slow in our booking to find two rooms for the three of us. However, looking back through my recommendations, I found one from Marybeth in Hanoi that included a link to a house in an area outside of town called An Bang Beach. It was a recently-built rental home right on the beach and only about 3 miles from the old town.

Temple House

We had two constant attendants - a young couple from next door named Mr. Manh and Ms. Hong - who took care of everything we needed from morning coffee to grocery shopping to laundry to daily cleaning to filling our motorbikes with gas when we ran out. 

The house included bicycles but we had decided that we might need the greater mobility offered by motorbikes. In Vietnam, the term "motorbike" applies to a smallish scooter-moped hybrid rather than a full-fledged motorcycle.   Most are Hondas or Yamahas, automatic transmission and light enough to swivel around by hand. The maximum speed is probably about 50 mph.   There also happened to be quite a few vintage 60s motorbikes around town that were tempting me to figure a way to import one - or more - back.

Marc had last ridden a scooter back in his college years and Carrie had never ridden a motorized cycle of any kind. So our first day we went out onto the street in front of the house and had a little orientation. They both took to it quickly and enthusiastically if a bit cautiously; which was a good thing because had plans for a little touring later in the week.  But our first excursion was down to the little beach hamlet of An Bang. We had been referred to a couple of expat-run beach restaurants but decided to try the one that came up most often - a place called Soul Kitchen run by a Frenchman.



Soul Kitchen - An Bang Beach

In spite of its silly name, Soul Kitchen was kind of the dream beach spot. It was made up of a series of open grass-roofed sheds with a bar and full kitchen and serving pretty decent Vietnamese and European food, a pool table, and cabanas perched on the dunes overlooking a beautiful beach with a few surfers. Much of the menu here was seafood including a memorable anchovy carpaccio. The clientele are primarily tourists and members of a fairly vibrant expat community which seems to number a couple hundred. An Bang still has quite a few local residents and still has an authentic unspoiled feel to it despite the occasional Aussies and Euros scooting in and out of the neighborhood. There are not any big hotels and the development is still pretty minimal. In the morning, fisherman still haul in nets of fish in round basket boats through a fairly intimidating surf.

Fisherman returning to beach in basket boats

Foreigners can own houses (and businesses) in Vietnam but need to invest with a 51% Vietnamese partner. Land does not seem to be very expensive and building a house (seemingly done almost completely by hand) is dirt cheap. We were told that a pretty nice house by western standards could be built for about $35,000 and one like our rental for maybe $55,000. The only hitch is that there is no private ownership of land in Vietnam. The government owns it all and issues leases. So buying the land to build your house is actually buying a lease which could be terminated at any time by the government who will pay you for your investment but decide themselves the value.

Hoi An Motorbike Adventures

As mentioned earlier, one of our hopes for our visit to Hoi An was a motorcycle tour. On our second day, Marc had taken a bicycle tour through the rice paddies to a farm outside of town and reported back that it was beautiful. This inspired us to explore even further afield. We had been referred to a company called Hoi An Motorbike Adventures run by an Australian.

On our third day, we were meant to meet at their storefront at 8:00 A.M. sharp. Unfortunately, the evening before, an ATM had eaten my bank card and I was scrambling to recover it before we headed out on the tour. We had used much of our cash in Myanmar and now had no means of paying except with credit cards, which was not going to work for either our motorbike tour or our house rental. After a frantic hour trying to sort things out with the bank, I deferred dealing with it and ran over to the motorbike office.

We immediately jumped in a cab with two other tourists to go to the garage for equipment, orientation and training, which amounted to fingerless gloves, helmets, a test drive up the road and instructions on how to properly follow the guide into oncoming traffic Vietnam style when traversing a major thoroughfare. When we went to get on our bikes I was dismayed to see that we all had been given motorbikes (scooters) like those we were already riding around, even though I had very clearly noted my "Experienced", "25 years" riding. I wanted one of the cool on-off road motorcycles they showed on their brochure.

Carrie undaunted

My Soviet-era Minsk

Fortunately, (as I saw it at the time, at least) a rider given one of the "vintage" Russian Minsk motorcycles backed away from the kick-start, two-stroke bike and requested a modern Honda motorbike. I gladly offered him mine in exchange and everyone was happy. Soon, we were heading out into real, non-tourist-area Vietnamese traffic.  Carrie and Marc Wolf continued to conduct themselves very capably even as we weaved in and out of bicycles, trucks, cows, and motorbikes making random stops and turns. My Minsk was loud and vibrated so much that the disconnected instruments were falling out of their assembly. (A handle bar view) At one point, when I was standing up to absorb a pothole the seat of my bike bounced loose and I had hold it on with my thighs until we stopped, which fortunately was only about 10 minutes when we stopped for coffee.

Champa Temple

While much of the ride was thrilling just in terms of the geography, the villages and merely staying alive through the various obstacles, our guide Mark made a point of stopping at a range of great sites from ancient Champa Kingdom constructions to American/Vietnam War landmarks including Hill 65 and an abandoned American airbase.  At Hill 65, history went to the victors and were told that the only memorials were to the North Vietnamese soldiers.  Not only were the American dead ignored but so were the South Vietnamese who had fought against a united Vietnam. 

Climbing the steps to Hill 65

Tortoises and soldiers commemorate the North Vietnamese victory on Hill 65

The (ad)vantage both sides were trying to capture at Hill 65



What is left of a US airbase



For a one-day tour, we managed to cover quite a bit of territory.  We covered about 90 miles, which took us about 8 hours.  Fortunately, we stopped for lunch at a small roadside cafe/gas station serving the delicious local dish, Mi Quang - rice noodles in a pork broth seasoned with tumeric. 

Gasing up

  



Vintage Gas Pump







Dining on Mi Quang

Out back

The afternoon found us traveling through rice paddies, threading herds of cows, navigating floating bridges and ferrying across a river where we had to roll our bikes onto a boat barely wide enough to hold them; while the boat was moving.  Everywhere we went, I was taken not only by the fact that people were friendly but that they actually seemed surprised to see us out in the countryside.  We are hardly the first tourists to travel these roads but it sure felt like it.





Sharing the road





Motorbike Ferry





Pigs in baskets



Floating Bridge



Faces along the way

 

  

Making it home just before sunset (but not before rush hour and the harrowing requirement to ride against traffic on a portion of the highway in order to cross it), we were exhausted.

Before we left this center of Vietnamese cooking, Carrie made sure to take a cooking class.  On our last day in Hoi An, she signed up for a class that started with a shopping tour in the food market and a ride up the river to a cooking pavilion where she had the opportunity to make some of the fantastic food we had been enjoying every day.  

Ingredients - Hoi An Market



Preparation

 

 The Beautiful Meal

 

Siem Reap, Cambodia

December 15, 2012

Our last destination before beginning the long circuitous journey back to the US was the home of Ankor Wat, Siem Reap, Cambodia.  Prior to visiting this part of the world, my expectations for Ankor Wat, while not exactly the Temple of Doom, did not prepare me for the vast and modern city that Siem Reap has become to cater to the large number of visitors to this spectacular site.  And while the temples are very much wonders, they are certainly no longer buried in the jungle.

Viroth's Restaurant

We arrived as the sun was setting and the neon and lanterns of this vibrant and beautiful city were just coming on.  The gateway to Siem Reap from the airport is lined with Vegas-style modern hotels and resorts. But as one reaches the center of the old city, the colonial and Cambodian character also starts to emerge.  Tuk-Tuks, scooters and cars zip through the circles and over bridges, carrying tourists to night markets as well as trendy restaurants and bars.  The contemporary nightlife of Siem Reap provides a distinct but not necessarily unflattering contrast to the ancient basis for the city's success.   

We checked in to a hotel that had been recommended by a fellow traveler in Burma called the Golden Banana.  An almost kitschy gay-targeted resort, the Golden Banana felt like some sort of Mediterranean or Key West oasis with rooms overlooking a central courtyard and pool.  It provided the perfect place to return after the hot dusty days we spent touring Ankor Wat, Ankor Thom and the other temples around Siem Reap.

The Golden Banana 

 

 

 

In spite of disparaging reviews of Cambodian cuisine, we had a number of impressive meals in Siem Reap, starting with the hip Viroth's.