Saigon and Dalat

Dalat is pretty cool! In temperament and temperature. It was a relief to finally get here. The trip from Saigon (Not Ho Chi Minh City, I'll explain in a minute) was much longer than the map would indicate and has put a kibosh on trying to travel the length of this country by bus or rail.

Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC from here on in) is a huge sprawl of 10 million people, enveloping Ton Son Nhut  airport (in my day, way on the outskirts of Saigon) on the northwest and all the way to Long Binh on the northeast and enveloping several formerly independent cities on the south. Buried somewhere in the center is district 1, still known as Saigon. Which is where we got off the bus form Phnom Penh after a 6 hour ride. We did not explore at all! Only there for the night and a bus ride to Dalat. Made friends on the bus with an ex-pat named Keith who led us to a pretty nice (and inexpensive) guest house. Keith has been in Asia for about ten years, doing carpentry and building houses and shops as prime contractor and has just opened a restaurant south of Nha Trang at a beach recently discovered by wind-surfers. House specialty: Tex-Mex. Good luck to him.  Saigon has the volume knob cranked up to 11! Everyone drives with one hand on the wheel (or more often, handlebar) and one on the horn. Traffic is up to and surpassing standard Asian, boggling the western mind.The bars are open to the street and apparently in competition to drown out the music of the ones next door.  You find yourself conversing in shouts. This goes on all night. Fortunately, our guest house was deep into an alley and pretty well soundproofed. Nevertheless, one night was enough.

Street scene, Saigon. Note the bundle of wires in the center of picture.

Oh hell, look even closer. Definitely not to code.

A word on bus serices in Asia. Just go to the hotel desk and express your wishes on destination. They make a quick phone call and give you a departure time and incredibly low price. In the morning, a cab or van picks you up at the door and, if a small trip, sets out to your destination. If a long trip or popular destination, they take you to the bus terminal and get you settled on the bus. In Saigon there was a young lady detailed to make sure we got on the right bus. This for a ride that cost ten bucks each. 

The ride to Dalat. It took hours to leave HCMC, most of it on wide boulevards and freeways, with designated motorbike sections. When we reached the outskirts on two lane roads, they were bordered by small businesses of all sorts, especially storage yards for heavy equipment. Power shovels, bulldozers and cranes galore, ready for the next building project. Then onto a fairly narrow two-lane road for a constant stop and go, never exceeding 40mph or so, horn constantly blaring. Good looking country, though. On the map, this looked like a shorter drive than Phnom Penh to Saigon but took two hours longer. Kind of soured us on busses up the length of the country. We'll fly from Dalat to Danang and probably from Hue to Hanoi  on our way Ha Lon bay.

Yes, this a necessary warning.

Crossing the Mekong

Back to Dalat. This city was virtually untouched by the war, known locally as the American War as opposed to the French War or Chinese War or Cambodian War. While the Central Highlands was raging, ARVN commanders had villas here, sometimes a couple hundred yards from VC cadre. In effect, Dalat was an open city. When North Vietnam invaded the South in 1975, they completely bypassed Dalat and dealt comparatively decently with the residents. Except for moving in hundreds of Hanoians on vacated tribal lands to farm and eventually get pretty rich. Admitted, the result of very hard work and waiting out some of the more hard-core communist economic principles.

Details of our hotel in Dalat. Not bad for 25$ a night.

Typical Dalat architecture

The town itself is really quite pretty with a decided French influence. Lots of 1930's era villas built in the tall narrow French style remain. Good streets, a nice lake in the middle of town. The people seem to know they have something special going here and do their best to keep it so. Our hotel is modern and convenient with a wonderful continental breakfast at the outrageous price of $25 a night. Of course, there's no elevator so we have to climb up and down granite stairs with gorgeous handrails. No air conditioning. There's a reason for that. Unlike most of Southeast Asia the temperatures here are like San Francisco. As Mark Twain quipped "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco".The night we got here, it dropped into the mid 50's, jacket weather. Excellent climate for fruit, vegetables, wine grapes (Dalat red and white wines are quite good and served throughout Vietnam)  and especially flowers. I'm astounded. There's a huge market for flowers in the Communist Wonderland!
Yesterday, we partook of a Vietnam innovation called "Easy Riders".This one was and all day tour of the city and environs as passengers on 125cc motorcycles. Note I said motorcycle as opposed to motorbike. These were built to actually handle two-up riding and actually looked like a traditional motorcycle. Into the terror of Vietnam traffic seated behind a little guy on a small motorcycle. These guys are pros! They glided through traffic like eels, always keeping plenty of space from traffic, handling potholes and dirt roads with aplomb. They even spoke good English. Start with a view of Long Biang Mountail, overlook terraced farms, through Luwok coffee(!) through a silk factory to Crazy House and the Ralilway Station. You know what, I'm just going to give you a reference- http://wikitravel.org/en/Da_Lat - We saw most of the stuff in the middle of the page interspersed with riding up and down who-knows-how-many hills. It was a hell of a day! Better than roller coasters. I'd better give special mention to the Crazy House. On the other hand, it's next to impossible to describe. The architect has a special relationship with Escher.

Elephant Falls

The way down to the falls.
Even riskier than the motorcycle ride

Laughing Buddha



Silk Factory



Crazy House

Oldest railway station in Indochina

Railcar built in Hanoi, 1930's.

1930's Japanese steam engine.

In a perfect world, we'd probably spend more time here, but our visas are only good til March 2 and we're going to try to make that deadline in order to spend more time in Chiang Mai. This afternoon, we're off again to Hue, or maybe Hoi An. I suppose eventually we'll have to decide.

Liz on leaving Cambodia

An early van from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh, the capital city for the Kingdom of Cambodia  took us to our hotel for $11 each. We checked in to the Comfort Hotel II for $18 per night plus $1 for breakfast. No swimming pool but lots of TV channels. Internet was too old to be compatible for our new net book. The walk-up computers in the lobby were slow but adequate.

We walked around the block for lunch and then rode a tuk-tuk to the Cambodian National Museum. We saw artifacts in greater detail than in Angkor Wat. The next day we planned to visit The Royal Palace but we were outranked by the President of Ecuador. We saw the honor guard and palace from afar. We visited the palace’s neighbor for $6.25, The Silver Pagoda with its emerald (actually jade) Buddha. The floor is made of thick tiles of actual silver. We saw a film on anthropological digs by Germans and Australians to educate us to place value in village artifacts. Villagers simply do not know and so sell their priceless heirlooms for money to buy a tractor or satellite dish. A museum guide solicited us for $10, a nice wage for 90 minutes. He gave us regional background. He emphasized with a large map how South Vietnam was called Chams; it was a Muslim country independent of anywhere else in Asia. The Silver Pagoda is a showcase of Cambodian wealth with gold and silver Buddhas, some faded photos of Cambodia’s prince, elephant palanquins, a loom for silk.

Dancers practicing for a show at the National Museum

Shrubbery elephants outside the National Museum.
Unfortunately, no photography allowed inside.



On the grounds of the Silver Pagoda


Near the palace Mike had ATM trouble; the ATMs only gave out $100 bills, He grumbled that the machine might as well give out gold bars. How would he use that to pay a tuk-tuk driver their $2 or $3 dollar fare? Near The Silver Pagoda was a mall full of shops with skimpy, colorful clothes apparently for bar girls. Mike was shocked to see women’s knits for sale on this warm place. May be knits are bought by Northern European tourists or lady boys? He paid a coffee shop girl $5 for a cup of coffee if she would break $100. We had coconut cake too.

Later we sat along the Mekong River having pizza when a gifted 10 year old girl walked up with a box of books for sale. She said she’d find Mike a copy of any book he'd want. Mike chose the 2011 edition of Lonely Planet on Vietnam and bargained with her. Meanwhile another little girl approached me to buy scarves. All too recently I unloaded my scarves from my 2004 trip to China and swore not to buy more. Unfortunately my little solicitor was seriously deformed. She had no fingers, apparently due to a ghastly birth defect; she had paws, not even her thumb was separated. Her state was all too overwhelming for me. Mike gave me Cambodian bills and I told her to take the donation and not disturb our dinner. And they disappeared but are not forgettable.
Later under Annoyances Lonely Planet discussed “Beggar Fatigue”.
We’ve just begun. I am not fatigued. My shock is fresh over the poor child without fingers. Mike was so taken by his child’s English and repartee. He told me how beautiful she was but really they are all beautiful, just gifted is rare.

The Cambodians in Siem Reap asked us about the issue of children selling to tourists. Tour guide Su Jett thought children ought not to sell merchandise because their families come to expect the income and it may cost a child their education. He said he paraphrased Lonely Planet. Tour driver Night (not so bright or articulate as Su Jet) thought that since schools operate only half day that it is OK for children to sell when school is not in session. Children learn a work ethic and they help their families before or after school. We all agreed with the UNESCO poster saying, “Children are not tourist attractions”.
Angkor Wat is a global destination because of guides like Su Jett. People with language skills are needed to speak to the Japanese, Thais, Turks, Finns, etc...  Yes, English is the lingua Franca but trips are better since Cambodia offers guides that speak many languages. Every nationality to visited appreciates someone who speaks to them .

Does it come down to parents? Children lack justice. Hopefully parents know them as unique individuals. Life is not fair. Life is difficult. One bright child like Su Jett learns 4 or 5 languages and makes a middle class living as a tour guide or teacher because his mother insists on protecting his education. Another child learns on the street and makes a living in the free market driving a cab and may earn just as much as Su Jett.

Cambodia’s genocide targeted city people, educated people, and in particular they lost a generation of teachers. Middle class working people like Mike and I would have died in the genocide. About 2 million were killed. The middle class raises children and when they are not alive to perform this critical role as in Cambodia it is a disaster. The middle class are the backbone of a society, not the rich or the poor.

Vietnamese tourist Visas are good for 30 days. Ours was bought ahead of time and expires on March 2. We may request an extension or make the trip fast. Border crossing by bus is much easier than it is to board a plane in a US airport.



  
 Cambodia is not as poor as Afghanistan, the poorest nation in Asia followed by Myanmar. While in Phnom Penh we crossed the Cambodian-Japanese friendship bridge obviously a gift from Japan. Later the bus actually drove onto a ferryboat and crossed the Mekong River. On the ferryboat were 3 other buses besides ours. The crossing took minutes and then the bus ground its way up a muddy rutted riverbank and returned to the road. The countryside looked greener and more prosperous as our 6 hour bus ride progressed. By the time we crossed into Vietnam we were in a noticeably healthier economy (even though Cambodia has casinos along the Thai and Vietnamese borders). Not just farms but the roads and houses next to the highways are decent. Then approaching the city the roads, sidewalks and curbs are paved and organized with distinct lanes for buses and cars that are separated from motorbikes. I even saw a traffic light. Somehow Vietnam is prosperous, a far cry from the dust, red dirt and unpaved streets in Phnom Penh. Vietnam’s prosperity spills over into provinces in Cambodia making them far more prosperous than inland Cambodia.

This is Mike’s first trip to Ho Chi Minh City. He was not sent to Saigon when he was in the US Army in Vietnam for all of 1967. He did not serve or visit  duty stations in Ho Chi Minh City. He does not want to see the tunnels here either but he would like to see the tunnels near the DMZ where he was stationed. While he was stationed there his base was relentlessly bombarded by rockets.

What, another temple?

The ride to Siem Reap (Translation - Thailand Dead, scene of a decisive battle sometime in the 9th century AD) was pretty much uneventful, just the usual border crossing, changing vans and drivers, finding the hostel. Apparently we're becoming hardened veterans of this. The travel is cheap, not terribly comfortable, but you get to see a lot of the local scene along the road. In the rural areas I began noticing an odd sort of tractor. Piece of brilliance actually, consisting of a big one cylinder engine, lots of power takeoffs, two decent size tractor tires on a crosswise axle and a pair of long motorcycle style handlebars. I saw some wheel sets for sale in a hardware store. The Thai/Cambodian/Lao/Vietnamese/etc. farmer takes these wheels and builds the cart, plow, disc, whatever he likes onto them or buys readymade implements. These tractors are apparently usually made in Japan (I asked our guide about Chinese manufacture, he claimed only a fool would buy Chinese machinery, and even the fool would only do it once.) Not as cheap as a motorbike ($1,800 range), still something a farmer or even village could purchase and retire the old water buffalo.

Siem Riep (the city adjoining Angkor Wat) is extremely cool, albeit in a very aggressively Southeast Asian way. Open air shops - check, river through the middle of town-check, fractured/unintentionally hilarious English signs-check,  roadside vendors-check, totally alien atonal music drifting up from somewhere-check, tinyBuddhist shrines everywhere-check, odd, alternately mouth-watering and nose-wrinkling cooking smells-check, coconut palms and pineapples growing everywhere-check. An aside: palm sugar is every bit as yummy as maple sugar. I'm surprised not to see palm syrup for pancakes, maybe a chance for a new get-rich scheme?  Angkor Wat may be the main draw but there is plenty more to keep you around a good while. First off, that is only one of the dozens of temples in the immediate area. Most are in a terribly picturesque state of disrepair. Actually, they aren't quite as ancient as they look, nearly all of them being built between 10th and 13th century AD. However the 15th century marked the end of Khmer military power and Siam and other rivals invaded, forcing the Khmer king to relocate to Phnom Phen. The temples fell into ruin and were pretty much forgotten until their rediscovery by a French explorer in the 1860's. A few unattended centuries in the jungle will definitely cause some maintenance problems. Makes them photogenic as hell, too. Enough so that one of the temples was a centerpiece in the movie, Lara Croft,Tomb Raider. Now I'll have to see the durn thing! By the way, Angelina Jolie is nearing saint status in Cambodia. Not only is her first adopted child Cambodian but she visits often and contributes to many charities here.   At this point I will put up a random gallery of temple photos. If you ask after I get home, I m fully equipped to bore you with all the temple pictures you can stand. Like potato chips, I just couldn't stop at a few.

The short story is: We saw dozens of temples. All different but on a common theme. We in the US consider Hindu and Buddhists to be the ultimate pacifists. Apparently this is a modern development. In the days of these temples, they were no more compatible than Catholics and Protestants in 17th century Germany. Pitched battles and terrritory changing hands. The Buddhists, being the younger religion, used earlier themes in their temples with the major difference being absence of the lotus blossom towers but with the older carving styles. When Hindus retook Buddhist lands, they'd just chisel off the Buddhas and build some Lotus towers. The hodgepodge still shows with tour guides pointing out the changes. One of the temples had a long frieze depicting daily life, some quite amusing. Look for the panel showing the wife passing a turtle to her husband, who it bites.

Going out to dinner was an adventure in itself. The area of course abounds in restaurants featuring mostly asian cooking with several surprises. Many of these places can do a pretty good spaghetti Bolognese. I've seen schnitzel advertised, and an American ham and egg breakfast is easy to find. So is Happy Pizza, with a special ingredient not available (okay, legal) in the US. I hear it's pretty good. Of course if you don't care for pizza, there's always Happy Shakes. Transportation around here is generally by tuk-tuk, spiritual descendants of the Samlor, a bicycle with a double rear seat. Now it's a motorbike with a trailer. Makes a heavyweight foriegner feel a lot less guilty.

Our third day of touring took us to Phuni Champei mountain, home of the Reclining Buddha carved into native rock on the peak of the mountain and the nearby River of 1000 Lingas. Funny thing about the mountains we've seen so far in Southeast Asia. Generally speaking this area is as flat as Kansas but every now and then a really big hill will just rise right up, no foothills or anything, just this big damn hill. Startling.  The Buddha and nearby waterfall live up to their billing. Roads in the national park are every bit as unimproved as the ones I've seen in many state parks, though without the standard motorbike traffic. Though the steps down to the main pool of the waterfall are definitely appreciated, there's not a chance that OSHA would have allowed us anywhere near them. Like a lot of Southeast Asian stuff, you're expected to watch out for yourself. The Lingas carved into the riverbed are at best puzzling. Not that the results are not noteworthy, just that the logic behind such a huge project eludes the western mind. Also, though they're meant to be phallic, they're just hemispheres in a square frame. Lots and lots of them!



Honest, the linga are in there somewhere,
underwater details just don't photograph well.

 Last night, we found an agreeably cheap buffet dinner and Cambodian cultural dance show. Absolutely beautiful costuming, graceful dancing, truly good food all for 8 bucks each, 5 to the tuk-tuk driver (Well, it was a long way and he apparently waited for us the 2 hours to take us back to the hotel. Night (His actual name in Khmer  is Midnight in honor of the hour of his birth) , our regular driver and guide, assures us that Cambodian culture is completely different from Thai. Couldn't tell it by me. There may be subtle differences in music and dance gestures, but I couldn't see them.

I should add that Siem Reap appealed to us enough that we took two more days than planned. Of course one is mostly to just kick back and recuperate but this place is made for just that!


Liz on Cambodia
We crossed from Thailand to Cambodia and checked into The Siem Reap Hostel with ease, respectably close to schedule and without undue hurry or discomfort, that includes time for toilet stops, filling out Visa-on-demand form and a good lunch. Going from Thailand to Cambodia occurs without any problem.
We paid $100 for trip including pick up from Pattaya (2 hours east of Bangkok) and drop off at final destination. The van picked us up 20 minutes after our stated 7:00 AM pick up time. Mike had the hotel call the ticket office twice but no one answered. We talked ourselves out of the worry because we are not on deadline and no assembly plants will close if we are late. The schedule said 7:00 to 16:00 which I did not believe. We were in our room by 5 PM and we were the last dropped off out of 10 passengers. We rode in a van with one Russian, father and son from Australia,3 Finns, a Canadian and a Brit. We crossed the border totting our bags in order to change vehicles and drivers.
Wouldn’t you think that we’d be relieved to see cars coming towards us on the same side of the road as in the US? Not really. After spending the past 90 days on the other side of the road it is not such a comfort after all.
Siem Reap is all about tourism and therefore it is the safest and most important destination in Cambodia. Even at the height of genocide one or more plane loads of tourists visited Angkor Wat everyday. We toured the best of 3000 temples with dazzling carvings by ancient Hindu and Buddhist carvers for their rulers. Tourists are not real Hindus or Buddhists, so no mobs like we may encounter in India. Thankfully Mike is an intellectual in addition to being a man’s man. Typically men stop after one day or even a half day of temples but he takes 3 days to learn and appreciate the significant variations. He took over 300 photos.
We booked 2 more nights for $20 each night in The Riverside Hotel because double bedrooms in Siem Reap Hostel ($24 per night) are sold out. Our driver suggested it and we met Australians who stayed there. The basic Angkor Wat temple ticket for 1 day is $20 and for 3 days it is $40. So we spent 4 days and then off to Phnom Penh (the capital) for $11 each. I really considered the boat ride on Tonsle. I read about it and even bought walkie-talkies that float in case I dropped one into lake. Then our guide said that a tourist told him that lake trip was uncomfortably hot, long and tedious. And undue exposure to malaria is not needed. Mike spent $50 for Doxymycin (from Malaysia, the US Glaxo Smith Kline cost $100) as our broad spectrum antibiotic and anti-malaria medicine today. How poor people stay away from malaria is doubtful. No wonder the note on the wall asks us to turn off our air conditioning when we leave our room.
Siem Reap’s electricity is imported from Thailand. Black outs occur (but not while we are here. Power is needed by the children’s hospital, not by our empty room.
Our tour guide, Su Jett, age 28 is a nationally certified tour guide. He told us that he speaks Thai and English. He has studied Japanese but finds it difficult to invert language structure for their construct. He also studied Chinese. He said that he changes his narrative so as not to offend his guest. He has the good manners not to say to Thais that Siem Reap translates Thailand Loses.
(What if Ho Chi Minh City was named US Loses? Or The Alamo was named Mexico Loses?)
So I gradually get the idea that since we are Americans that he and Night, our driver are leaving certain parts of historic narrative out so as not to offend us. Su Jett also asked us about religion. How can Su Jett know that Mike is a militant agnostic? Su Jett is so well mannered that he’s attended church. Is that just so he can reassure Born Agains that Jesus is his Savior if they require that of him? Cambodia is 97% Theravada Buddhist. Monks in robes burn fires and ask for alms all over the place. Too bad they have this Buddhist diversion (that China is free of) when they need roads and so much else. Cambodia has some natural gas so they better be real careful since they cannot trust their neighbors. They like the Japanese, their best most faithful long standing tourists but ever since WWII they don’t trust them either.
In order to understand us Su Jett asks us about our belief system. He asks about how or why beliefs evolve within cultures. Mike tells Su Jett about a scientific study with 10 monkeys and a bunch of bananas. I repeat it here because it is so noteworthy.
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Did_the_monkey_banana_and_water_spray_experiment_ever_take_place

Meanwhile the most traumatic event to occur in Su Jett’s life was the economic crisis. In 2008 during their high season (Nov. to March) no visitors visited. Su Jett actually took a job in a casino as a cashier. No wonder they walk on egg shells to please us.

As we approach various temples disabled victims of landmines, (mostly farmers and construction workers) play traditional Cambodian folk music and Mike drops a $1 in their bowl. The Landmine Museum extracted my righteous indignation over the insatiable US Military Industrial complex. I am glad to pay a museum (and NGO) $3 to see this disclosure, their home grown stab at addressing evil. The US dropped 300 million tons of bombs on Cambodia. Under Clinton’s Administration the US gave out a map of where bombs were dropped but it is admittedly an incomplete map. US planes dropped ordinance on all of Cambodia without any militarily justifiable reason. The bombers were not allowed to land until they dropped their load and they dropped without rhyme, reason or record. Theoretically the military reason was to bomb the Ho Chi Minh trail, a supply line that was a static target. Instead bombs were dropped all over the entire nation of Cambodia. I am ashamed that the US was not brought to trial for this atrocity. My own excuse to exempt the US from such a trial is that we were supposed to have learned our lesson; hah! Wikipedia says
I am pleased with our visit here. I will follow with new interest the life of Angela Jolie's son, Maddox who is adopted from Cambodia. Maddox is a household world in Cambodia. Everyone here hopes for more Tomb Raider Movies to add to economy.
We visited a Killing Field. We saw skulls and not much else. The visit was not painful or difficult, not as effective or engaging as a Holocaust Museum because interaction is minimal. They really cannot afford to drive Americans away and we are terribly thin skinned and immature as a culture and people. We believe we are perfect.
Jackie Kennedy visited Cambodia in 1967. She informed and inspired me to visit.
Before she married Aristotle Onassis she was the most admired woman in America.
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8612ghM9gMk
　[F]rom October 4, 1965, to August 15, 1973, the United States dropped far more ordnance on Cambodia than was previously believed: 2,756,941 tons' worth, dropped in 230,516 sorties on 113,716 sites. Just over 10 percent of this bombing was indiscriminate, with 3,580 of the sites listed as having "unknown" targets and another 8,238 sites having no target listed at all. . . . [T]he total payload dropped during these years to be nearly five times greater than the generally accepted figure. To put the revised total of 2,756,941 tons into perspective, the Allies dropped just over 2 million tons of bombs during all of World War II, including the bombs that struck Hiroshima and Nagasaki: 15,000 and 20,000 tons, respectively. Cambodia may well be the most heavily bombed country in history. . . . [T]he bombing forced the Vietnamese Communists deeper and deeper into Cambodia, bringing them into greater contact with Khmer Rouge insurgents . . . [and] drove ordinary Cambodians into the arms of the Khmer Rouge, a group that seemed initially to have slim prospects of revolutionary success.

Finally, Thailand

So here we are in Beautiful Downtown Pattaya. Had a hell of a time getting here, too. Everything went fine as we left  Penang and that’s where things fell apart. What with extra stops and an overlong stay in customs and a rest stop, we missed the noon bus to Bangkok from Hat Yai. Next one wouldn’t be until 7 that night. Liz was furious.  I had wondered when the famous SE Asian inefficiency was going to rear its head, so was a bit more philosophical. No matter, we found a taxi (Small Toyota pickup with seats, canvas roof and grab rails installed in the bed, hell of  a nice driver, 6 bucks there and back, probably 12-15 miles, not to mention his interpreter help at the booking window.)to the actual bus terminal. We’d been dropped at an interim point more convenient for vans, which we’d taken from Penang. Another sore point for Liz, she’d expected a Trailways type conveyance. We  verified that the next bus was indeed 7 PM. Went  back into town, had lunch and waited. Long acquaintances of mine have probably heard me rhapsodize about the quality of roadside food in Thailand. I still will. These folks know what spices are for! Not to mention coconut milk. So we hung around town, playing tourist and just killing time. At about 7, the bus pulled in. That’s more like it! A huge double decker with laydown seats and a big TV screen up front. Even an in-flight(?) movie. Okay, the movie was flatly ridiculous, made even worse for me by the star being the captain of the Firefly, my favorite doomed TV series.  That and nice low lighting along with those comfortable laydown seats made sleep easy.

Chicken Curry, with the little green peppers
(maybe bitter melon?) I remember so well

Toyota pickup taxi. Used for in-town, between towns,
cargo, passengers, whatever.

Bangkok at 5AM. Once again Liz was furious, with good reason. We were dropped off in a public park, roused from sleep with the opening of the bus doors, into a mob of taxi drivers bargaining to take us to our destinations. They had less English than I have Thai. If you knew just where you were going, you were fine but otherwise you were on your own. Liz was having none of it. We walked away with our luggage with no idea of where we were and no idea of how to get anywhere else. Turned out to be one of her finest hours. Everything turned out fine. I’ll mention here that it does absolutely no good to lose your temper. Once you get shrill, everybody around is too embarrassed to even see you. Or something like that.  I still have no idea of just where we were, except it seemed to be in one of Bangkok’s western suburbs. A 6 lane boulevard, lots of nice hotels around, many nicely groomed home offices of obscure and not so obscure firms, a few 7-11’s. These, by the way, are ubiquitous in Asia, even more common than in the states. While on the subject I’ll also mention McDonalds, KFC, Subway and Starbucks. This is what the rest of the world sees as exotic American cooking. Sigh. After waiting around for the world to wake up, we made the acquaintance of a very nice Thai girl on her way to her office job (of course I forgot her name, could barely pronounce it) in her late teens (maybe late 20’s or even 30’s - no way of knowing, these women never seem to age except all of a sudden.)  with excellent English who guided us onto a FREE bus that took us to within a kilometer of  the hostel where we were supposed to have spent the night. We negotiated a hot shower and luggage storage and set off to see at least a little of Bangkok. Then a 5 buck (150 baht) taxi ride to a bus station and a 3 hour ride to Pattaya. It took over an hour and a half to leave Bangkok and its suburbs. The place has grown and grown and grown. Factories, warehouses, port facilities, housing for all those workers, population is near 10 million. When I was there in ‘69 it was in the half million range. Didn’t recognize a thing. Not that it’s a huge slum or anything, just huge.

I have no idea where this is.

Note Ronald McDonald's "wai".
Traditional respectful greeting.

Something similar could be said about Pattaya. Our RCI  accommodations had been there for a few years but the taxi (Toyota truck again) driver didn’t recognize the address. After several discussions with other drivers, he had a vague idea. When we got close, the RCI logo sealed the deal. RCI has done it again. Really nice place, more luxury than we can use (2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 2 TV‘s, 3 balconies, great air conditioning), good shops, including a tailor and pool on the ground floor (open air, Thai style) an excellent Vietnamese restaurant on the roof affording a full view of Pattaya. Once we walked around the area, I understood a bit better. We are in the center of quite a large expansion with half a dozen condominiums and hotels going up simultaneously around us. The street naming and addressing system could probably use some sprucing up too. At least we’re not far from the old downtown. Sin Strip itself, half a mile long with a beautiful beach a block over. This is one of the places the boys in ‘Nam would head for on R&R and it’s only gotten woollier in the decades since. Remember, this strip is easily avoided by anyone who doesn’t have a taste for girlie bars, short-time girls, short-time boys, ladyboys and who-knows-what-else. So of course it’s crowded. One thing I didn’t expect was open-air girlie bars with lots of pool tables. At 60 cents for a game of eight-ball with plenty of cleavage teamed against you, it’s a wonderful incentive to prolong the game. Lots of country-and-western, 60’s rock and even go-go bars too, almost all open to the street.  Hell of a show. 

For milder tastes, there are lots of shops with great bargains in clothes, woodcarvings, most consumer goods. Two exceptions are electronics and eyeglasses. A laptop computer, electronic camera, phone will cost within ten percent of what it will with some judicious shopping in the states and glasses will cost more, as all the frames you see are high-style designer stuff. I’m sure locals know where to find the less expensive stuff but they’re not telling. Since we’re down to one e-book, I went on the hunt in Singapore to see if I could find something cheap. They’ve never even heard of the things anywhere I’ve asked. The huge bargains are in food, transportation and lodging. Such good food it is, too. Oh, I already mentioned that, didn’t I? I almost forgot the Pattaya Beach. Just a little the way from Sin Strip. Shops, hotels, vendors of tropical fruits and honest to gosh malls on one side of the street, on the other is a beautiful white sand beach, miles long, filled with cabanas and slow-cooked Europeans and vendors of coconuts complete with soda straw and other beverages, alcoholic and not. In the distance are dozens of jet skis, big speedboats, sailboats, parasails, islands bracketed by the city skyline on one side and Pattaya Hill (our hotel is up there somewhere) on the other.

Of course there are also very reasonable tours of the countryside and outlying islands. We took one just yesterday. It’s billed as the 3-island tour. Not an awful price, 90 bucks for the two of us. It included fishing (I caught one small fish, immediately deemed unacceptable by the guides, popeyed sort of thing, maybe 8 inches long, possibly illegal by the quick way they returned it to the wild.), snorkeling, lunch and a few hours lolling on a beautiful beach with a beach chair all our own. Somewhat regimented since this island is a really popular spot and every square foot gets used. For a good quarter mile long and a couple of hundred feet deep. Warm ocean water. Liz loved the snorkeling but I didn’t indulge as the salt water hurt my road-rash. More on that later. The parasailing was a complete gas and no sort of a physical challenge. You leave the tour boat onto a big flat topped barge then they harness you up in an ingenious rig, bring the sail to a halt with the previous passenger attached. Unsnap two clips at his shoulders, snap onto your clips and next thing you know, you’re twenty feet in the air, then 50 or so, towed behind a hell of a big speedboat. A couple of laps around the barge and into a very soft landing, unclip the harness and walk away, pumping adrenaline. If a Cedar Point rollercoaster is a 10, I’d give it an 8. Well worth the 15 bucks.

The road rash. Monday, we rented a scooter (Hey, 6 bucks for the day!) and braved Pattaya traffic. Not that big a deal, biggest danger being fellow tourists. Except for the gravel road we wandered onto. Moved quick to avoid a dog, found a rut. All in slow-motion, maybe 15 mph, except for the wheel grabbing the rut and snapping us off. Thankfully, Liz landed on top of me and the scooter. I , on the other hand was between the scooter and the road. Scraped off a little skin on my ankle, knee, elbows and hands. Looks awful, doesn’t hurt hardly at all. Alcohol, iodine and gauze held in place with the ever-handy duct tape should do the job. Lost a mirror on the scooter, damned embarrassing.

We also took in the Alcazar show. The cabaret is an all-male revue, not that you could tell. Wherethehell do they hide it? Seriously, this is a Las Vegas style and Las Vegas professional show. Great music, costumes and production values. Still, I doubt some proud mother is gushing “My son’s in Show Business!”.  On the other hand, considering relaxed Thai attitudes, I could be wrong.

14,15

One last thing. In a full week I have seen hundreds of cats. One, count’em one has been even vaguely Siamese.

Liz in Pattaya, Thailand

Yesterday we took an all day tour to 3 Islands for 1500 baht each or with drinks and a parasail ride the trip was $110.  Fine white sand beaches, water that mirrors the sky and great wind for sailing make Pattaya an international destination. I miss the Atlantic Ocean’s waves. I snorkeled but saw nothing of note; no reef, a few tiny fish without color and some rocks.  I learned to avoid the stink from jet skiis and motorboats.

Traveling with Mike is fun and it is extra fun since Mike speaks a little Thai and asks questions and tries to learn words. His attempts to speak charms. Cab drivers ask him to sit up front with them in taxi trucks. 

A taxi truck (carries 10-13 passengers) picked us up from our timeshare. On board were 3 Norwegian sisters in their 60’s. They said that Norway’s population is 5 million people and it is a very expensive place to live and visit. North Sea oil wealth keeps them too rich to join the Euro zone but meanwhile the sisters do not feel rich. Then the taxi picked up some Arab men. Some were late or hard for our driver to find.

We were the only Americans on our tour boat of 30. I counted when we stopped for fishing, shocked that so many people would cast reels off the boat. But it was a good task to bond us.

A pair of New York men were on another boat. I approached them because one of them was African American so I guessed correctly that they were Americans.  Signage on the city blocks here change by nationality. Russian, Arabic, Korean, British, Thai and as Mike noted American chains line the tourist streets off the beach. Imagine Lebanese restaurateurs leaving their bombed out Beirut Riviera and starting over in peaceful Thailand. The Norwegian sisters shared our surprise that so many Russians visit here. Like us they had no idea that Pattaya was a Russian holiday destination. The manager of our timeshare building, Pattaya Hill is a Russian, Tatiana Yashchuk.

An ecstatically grateful Libyan sat next to us on our ride back from the beach trip. Using lots of video sound effects he told us what a poverty stricken police state Libya was under Mummer Khadafy.  He said (with lots of Pow Pows) that he fought with rebels for the overthrow. He said his English language comes from videos. He thanked France’s President Sarkosy and Obama. I put in a plug for Hillary. We wished him well and told him to transform Libya into a tourist destination like Pattaya.

I like Thai food! Like Mike always said the food in Thailand is really good. Thais are the gourmets of the Orient. Such a relief after disappointment of Malaysian food. Our Asian breakfast staple ever since Singapore is white bread (like Sunbeam or Holsum) made from rice flour.  We toast it and add butter and jam. Tea and coffee are in coffee pots just like pots in any US diner. Fruit if served is watermelon. Fruit juice is orange juice but I think it tastes artificial, certainly off. A variety of hot Asian dishes appear in a big buffet.  One chafing dish holds fried rice while another holds fried eggs. 

Kelvin our Chinese day tour guide in the Malaysian Cameron Highlands told us that the Chinese eat dogs. He did not know first hand of people eating cats. The Chinese criteria for eating an animal is, “Does the animal’s backbone face the sky?” Kelvin said that monkeys were OK to eat under this rule since they walk on their front arms. Small skinny cats are accepted to walk around our timeshare resort. Cats were accepted in Bali too probably because they keep away mice and other vermin. Thailand is mostly Buddhist and has a live and let live attitude. 

How do I feel? That is always the hardest question for me to answer. I have to talk a long time to figure it out. This difficulty is why I practiced  my answer with a psychologist for so many years. Last night we watched The Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher’s story played by Meryl Strep. It was dark, truth seeking and not flattering. Margaret Thatcher was confounded by the question of feelings. When asked, “How do you feel?” she ranted against her doctor for asking. Her sarcasm was cryptic. She demanded thoughts that turned into action, results, character development and then leadership. The Iron Lady is  nothing like the portrayal of personality integration and enlightenment found in The King’s Speech. I will not suggest this movie for parents (Oldies as the Australians say) unless the parent is an avid movie goer and not easily depressed.. Thatcher as an iron lady cannot allow herself to say that she feels lonely. Alzheimers sets in and she has a running imaginary conversation with her husband that she will not admit to. She does not have friends only secretaries. She is not loving towards her daughter and even insults her and tries to chase her away. While her daughter assists her she tells her daughter that the daughter is unattractive. Thatcher berates her for assisting her, her mother. Meanwhile let me say thank you to our highly independent parents. We are grateful and lucky to have such independent parents who do not make any demands upon us. Also we heartily thank our siblings for attending to our parents while we are so far away. All we do is mail postcards.

 

Back to how am I feeling. Traveling for seven months means that we cannot visit family and friends.  Our most intimacy is shared exchanges via the internet. Thankfully I have a couple of faithful e-mail friends. The random company of strangers and reading  add companionship. After a bout of diarrhea and the loss of our pictures, the loss of electrolytes magnified the loss of the photos. I won’t easily tell about our trip without those photos. Maybe I ought to pay for a luggage scale and weigh myself but I look the same, clothes fit the same.  A nose cold triggered by a scratchy throat due to air conditioning is wearing on both of us. Air con related colds are par for the course in the tropics.

Then the slow motion fall off of motor scooter. What most worried me was Mike’s initial denial. He thought about everything other than injuries. He thought about the accident report and mechanical issues. I bought a bag of ice and tried to ice our wounds. Mike says, “You’re such a girl”, that this is nothing compared to his past dirt biking injuries. I got a few scrapes on my hand and a shoulder bruise/road rash. I was so shocked and I am really thankful to blog to express this more. Mike’s unspoken message is “Don’t feel this; it is insignificant.” But meanwhile he is hiring cabs and not motorbikes. I trust him and would ride with him any time he asks. I wanted him to have fun on motorbikes and feel bad our fun was spoiled so quickly. He has elbow and hand scrapes and a swollen foot where the bike hit him.

I just had diarrhea again. My fault. I drank ice water in the building’s “Le Coffee Shop”. It looked so refreshing that I fell for it. Over and over again when we toured China our guide told us not to drink tap water, that the Chinese themselves do not drink tap water. I do not know who that Thai waitress thinks we are and who can drink this water (maybe the Thais or the Russians) but it is definitely not me! Mike had beer and I may have to start drinking beer myself. I skipped going out to a show last night.  Mike went alone since he’d paid for us to see it. He said it was slightly sleazy with some amazing acts but not too raunchy.

When Mike writes that I was furious about travel delays I am surprised and resist temptation to edit his text. I did not yell. I hardly even spoke to anyone except Mike though I said loudly to Mike so that the dispatcher would hear that that was not the deal; that is not what we agreed to. My GM experience in procuring parts for an assembly plant for 17 years lead me to ask for another bus company. I wanted to know options for going to Bangkok. I was angry with myself for not booking the train in Malaysia before it was sold out. I don’t even know why I hesitated to book that train(except for scattered internet and not feeling so well).  We were promised that the bus would arrive at 7PM for a total transit time of 16 hours versus 27 hours on a train. We agreed to and paid for a 16 hour trip. Before I’d wait 5 hours  and then sleep on a bus all night I looked for another bus company. The ride was smooth and we slept quite well considering.

When we got off the bus in Bangkok we did not hire the first fast talking taxi driver to pressure us. We just woke up, got off the bus and had not even found a toilet when the cab drivers came at us. What is the approach that experienced European travelers take? (Our trip is hardly unique.) Travel guidebooks say the traveler’s biggest waste of money is taxis. Especially for us since we typically stay in centrally located hostels that are close to terminals. We found a decent toilet and a 7-11 provided breakfast. We sat along a beautiful boulevard and  got used to looking at photos of the King of Thailand before taking a free city bus with a wooden floor to our Hostel International  where we showered and freshened up.

Nonetheless our minds played tricks with us due to the odd night. I thought I lost the I-phone but later found it in bottom of back pack. Mike smoked and chatted with a hostel guest outside.  When we proceeded to run some errands he missed his hat and camera. We looked in the shower room several times before I found they’d fallen in a narrow space next to the toilet.

Entering new places is harder on Mike than on me because he works so hard to get oriented right away. He gets agitated trying to figure out where he is. When we had the motorbike spill Mike was distracted by trying to figure out where we were (in addition to a crater in the road and a dog in the crater). We also try to head inside by 3 PM to catch our breathe. Quitting time for GM suits us as travelers too. 

 

In Pattaya and in our comfortable timeshare I pampered myself with a facial and the next day a swim in a perfect pool. Today I ordered a strawberry yogurt parfait for the first time in eons just to up my calorie intake. We tried to replace our Sudafed with another decongestant but no non-drowsy decongestant is sold in Thailand due to methamphetamine addiction. So we might just slow down and take more naps before we take our next bus trip to Cambodia on Sat. Feb. 11. 

Author Rabih Alameddine’s novel, The Storyteller  is an ideal traveling companion. It juxtaposes 1001 Arabian Nights and contemporary life. It is perfect reading in exotic lands especially where women wear veils.

We sent our laundry out this week for the first time since French Polynesia. It cost $18. Several articles of clothing were returned definitely cleaner than ever. They also washed out blood stains from our scrapes. I usually wash out our clothes in the bathsink every third day. Socks take the longest time to dry, a day and/or night and then off we go. REI pants, shirts and underwear dry within hours.  

With less than 90 days of travel remaining I think about how to lighten our load in Vietnam and what if anything to donate or mail home. I do not expect to need my prescription swimming goggles again. I can only guess that it will be colder in Hanoi and Laos in late February or early March so I expect to carry our few items of warm clothing up there in case we get cold. My $35 bag from Australia is not a back pack meaning it does not have straps. That might be an issue in places like Cambodia where sidewalks are irregular at best but since Mike does not hesitate to take a taxi I’ll drop this concern.

Mike gave me a budget of $100 per day at the outset of our trip. We calculate the actual at $150 per day. Mike is satisfied and unconcerned about this cost.   

I have not been impressed with the shopping and won’t get into shopping mode here. The Russians however cannot buy enough clothing and leather goods. We need to replace the power cord for our walkie talkies (which we have yet to use and may never actually need) but we cannot find a Radio Shack type store. I want new eyeglasses with transition lenses but they’d cost $1000. I thought about a quick flight to Hong Kong, world’s eyeglass masters but I don’t know what a Chinese Visa requires and I’ll probably get better faster and certainly more familiar in Michigan.

We read Thom Hartmann’s newsletter and appreciate his reminder of how better than 50% of young adults in the US are unemployed or underemployed. I wonder what I would do if I were entering the work force today. If it weren’t for the luck of my GM career I’d be running a small business somewhere.

In an attempt to inspire let me describe 2 business owners who think outside the box. Diego and Pete are 2 really interesting men who own their own resorts.

We met Diego Angel at breakfast in Kuala Lumpur. He friended us on Facebook shortly after our breakfast with him. Diego is maybe 30 and from a Columbian family with a plantation. He used his trust funds to attend a university in Brisbane, Australia where he met loads of surfers. He fell in love and married an Indonesian. He  bought beachfront land on an island that he shares with Neolithic tribes. Their guests are mostly Australian surfers. He also offers great fishing and they serve great meals. It is not unusual for guests to meet the shaman of the Neolithic tribes in the forest. He is very impressed by how the Neolithic manage their population without exhausting their resources. Diego feels  on an equal footing with his other family members because he does not live in Columbia with his hand out for a cut in their plantation proceeds. He gives credit to his wife’s political connections in Indonesia for the permits that allow them to own rare precious beach front. They raise their 3 year old son and she is earning a degree from a college in Kuala Lumpur. I asked him if he had a car and he looked distressed, no, he’d had to buy a boat with his profits this year to make transport faster and more comfortable for guests. The family still has only the motorbike.

We met Pete from London on the morning leg of our ill fated bus trip to Bangkok. Pete was on the bus to renew his Thai Visa as required quarterly. Pete is about 40 and bought into a resort on the Thai island of Samuii. Pete was an IT manager and worked all over the world. While on a month’s vacation in Samuii he struck up an engagement with Ying, a Thai daughter of the resort. He reorganized his entire life and gives his all for their 22 room resort. Maximum capacity is 75 people. Paradoxically for an IT manager he does not advertise and has no web site, not even a Facebook page. Guests are either returning customers or dropped of by the island’s taxi driver. I asked him about their family and he said that Ying is raising a niece and nephew. He picks them up from school via motorbike quite often and even assists them with their English homework. The children are quiet around him and he seemed to reflect on that after admitting it. If you ever visit Samuii, look up Pete and Ying. Meanwhile he has hardly had a day to just go fishing by himself in the last 6 months.