mth! backpacking through southeast asia

SAWAT DII KHRAP:travels of a farang in south east asia

I Remember California
I've been homesick today, nearly all day long. To some extent it's just from travelling. I'm tired of lugging all my stuff--the same stuff--around with me everywhere I go. I'm tired of packing and unpacking. I'm tired of this shirt. I'm tired of these shorts. I'm tired of the weight and the sweat and the dirt on my feet.

Not that I'm ready to come home. But a few things occured to me today.

The first is that what I miss is not the USA, but California. For virtually everything I miss about the States is California-specific. Northern California-specific at that. (Although Oregon would probably do in a pinch.) I miss the conversations, and the politically-aware populace. I miss the ethnic diversity. I miss the restaurants, and the coffee shops on every corner. I miss the fog, and the way the light hits the sides of the buildings, turning everything a radient pink. I miss the produce, and the greatest grocery stores in the world. I miss the healthy lifestyle. I miss the music, and the clubs, and the house parties where it doesn't matter whether or not you know the person throwing the bash. I miss riding my bike through Golden Gate Park and winding up at the Pacific Ocean. I miss the cliffs that plunge down to the raging sea. I miss the Victorians and Edwardians, and the parks hidden throughout the city. I miss the emissions standards and environmental regulations. I miss the hills and valleys. I miss the hipsters and hippies and b-boys and geeks, conspiring to utopia at the end of The West. I miss it all.

The second thing that occured to me is that it's nice to have a place to miss. Growing up in The South, I was always looking for greener pastures. I was never content where I was, and always assumed there was something better. Something different. I'm not knocking the South. Colorado didn't do it for me either. For some people, there is no greater place than Athens, Georgia, or Asheville, North Carolina. And that's beautiful. But that wasn't the case for me. I think that deep down, I've always been "from" California. I just never knew it until I got there. I'm glad I miss it.

Finally, it occurs to me that this is yet another benefit of travelling: it makes you aware of just how good you've got it. I take home for granted a lot of times. I take it for granted that I live in one of the greatest places on the face of the Earth.

I love Thailand. I love Asia. I'm nowhere near ready to leave. But I remember California, and I'm damn glad I do.

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J o y e u x N o e l

Merry Christmas from Harper and Mat!

Peace on Earth, Goodwill towards all.

a note about the above photo: in Vietnam, which has a Catholic population of nearly 10 percent, plus assorted protestants, you see Christmas trees and santas everywhere. Christmas music abounded there. It's one of nine major holidays in the country, and is, apparantly, widely celebrated by Christians and non-Christians alike. We kept seeing trees and wanting to have our picture made with one, but most were on the street and I always felt uncomfortable handing over my camera to someone. But this photo was taken on the rooftop bar at the Rex Hotel in Saigon, site of the daily "Five O' Clock Follies," where the US military briefed the press corps. The joint was empty, so I set the camera on the ground, hit the timer, and took the shot.

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Beach Party Vietnam
Saigon, shit. (Hell yeah! I've been waiting for months to say that!)

Travelling in Vietnam has been amazing, although much more difficult than travelling in Thailand. This is not due purely to transportation--although partially--but also due to the steady stream of "He-llo!-Mister-where-you-from"'s that greet you about every five feet, and which are inevitably a prelude to offering you something you don't want. It can be hard to walk down the street without picking up a crew of salesmen--most under the age of 14--to tag along with you.

No, I don't want to buy postcards.

No, I don't need a room.

No, I'm not hungry.

No, I don't need a shoeshine. Besides you can't shine sandals.

No, I don't want to buy a lighter.

No, I don't want a cyclo.

No, I don't want... what the hell is that anyway?

And the roads are terrifying and your van is packed with people and everywhere you go you're sold and lied to and shortchanged and someone swipes 10,000 Dong off you at the post office and your clothes aren't warm enough and the pillow smells like the underside of a log and the sheets are damp and the manager of the hotel comes knocking on your door at night to try to sell you tour packages and it's worth every bit of the hassle. Every bit. It's amazing. It's completely foreign to me. This is what you come for, this is what you put up with it all for. The rice paddies and the hills and rivers and jungles. The temples and shrines and strange ceremonies. The markets and street hawkers and wide variety of local beers.

You put up with all the hassles for the payoffs. You look around you and say "yeah, this is what it's all about." You have conversations with locals and learna little bit more about their culture as they learn about yours. You sample food that you've never even heard of in the States and discover that it's just delicious.

And you also meet some of the nicest people. We've had several folks come up to us and start talking to us just because we were Americans, and they were curious about us. They've been invariably nice, and all have been happy to have us in their country. This is not what I thought. I thought there would be more bitterness. Particularly after seeing some of the destruction we wrought here. oming in, I was even wondering if we should try not to tell people we were from The States. I wasn't going to be one of those travellers who fakes Canadian (eh), but neither was I going to wear a flag on my shirt.

In Hue, we went to The Citadel--the Imperial City of Hue--where the Nguyen dynasty ruled, Vietnam's last dynasty. It's a ruined city of crumbling walls and pagodas, destroyed in 1945 and again in 1968 during the Tet offensive. This was the setting for Stanley Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket." You can still see bullet holes in many of the walls. But this destruction has, oddly enough, added to the beauty of the place. It gives it a haunted, tragic feel.

Hue lies just south of the former DMZ, and we took a day trip up there, along both sides of the old border. There is not much to see there, literally, as just about everything there was destroyed during the Vietnam War (which is caled The American War here). The DMZ was very depressing. Our tour guide grew up there during the war, his hometown was completely destroyed.

We toured the Vinh Moc tunnels, where an entire village lived undergound. This was just north of the border, and was extensively bombed during the war. Several villages in the area went underground after we began carpet bombing the area in 1966(I believe it was 66). But Vinh Moc, at 27 meters below ground, was able to survive, while many others collapsed. Unlike the Cu Chi tunnels here close to Saigon (we're going tomorrow) which were rebuilt for tourist, these are the real thing, exactly as they were. In other words, look out for rats, yo. We went down three levels, the very bottom of which was covered in water, it being the rainy season. We took off our shoes and waded through about an inch and a half of water out to the beach, where the village received and sent supplies. Afterwards, we were muddy.

And then there were the after-effects of Agent Orange. A great deal of the hillsides are covered in short, stumpy growth (which is remarkable in SE Asia where trees and vines seem to sprout from every square millimeter of soil. There are still large swaths of land where nothing grows but grass, and others that are just now being able to support trees. You see row after row of stunted little pine trees--no more than 3 feet high--growing around some of the old American firebases where the government is trying to replant the soil.

Khe Sanh almost made me cry. I'm no nationalist, I'm not even particularly patriotic. Nations are antiquated, in my opinion. The stuff of tanks and guns and suicide bombers. I'm proud of where I'm from, yet I believe that you must have a global perspective. The world is smaller every day and we have to stand together or we'll all hang seperately, to paraphrase an American patriot.

But Khe Sanh bothered me. I can understand the Vietnamese anger with us. I can even sympathize with it. But seeing the glee taken in making Khe Sanh a "hell on earth" for American soldiers made me sad, and then reading the arrogant comments of some of the European visitors flat out pissed me off.

Khe Sanh was foggy, and surrounded by mountains. It looks, and is, completely foreign. I couldn't help but think of the kids who died there--because that's what they were. Kids! Kids, terribly far away from home fighting for something they probably couldn't even explain in a place they didn't want to be. The Vietnamese lost 10,000 to Khe Sanh, and we lost 500. Any way you look at that, it's a tragedy.

But you wouldn't know it by reading some of the comments in the guestbook--almost exclusively from Europeans. There was unbridled joy there. And it infuriated me. I recognize that most of the rest of the world hates Americans, and I understand what it is about our corporate consumer culture that makes them feel that way.

But what kind of monster do you have to be to take joy in death? Lord knows that--despite what the government may say--the Vietnamese people I've talked to all seem to consider it a tragedy. Why can't the Europeans have the same perspective?

Look, Jorn, you want to criticize the States? Fine. That's your right, and more power to you for doing so. We probably have a lot of common ground. But if you're going to talk about American Imperialism, stub out the Marlboro, take off your Nikes, and lose the North Face backpack, hypocrite. It's particularly galling coming from the French, who spent a century here doing atrocious things before the Americans ever showed up; the British, who ran roughshod over most of the world for two-hundred years; and the Germans, who had been busy with their own atrocities twenty years earlier.

But enough of that.

Driving from Hue to Hoi An, we passed along a section of road that looked remarkably like Big Sur. Mountains hitting the sea. As we passed through the hills, the weather warmed remarkably. Below us, a thick blanket of fog covered everything. I was listening to Bob Dylan and Cymande and the minutemen on my headphones, and wondering how such beauty could exist unknown.

Hoi An itself was a small riverside town next to the beach, full of quainty little shops and fabulous restaurants. Several of the local specialties there were just top-notch. One of the meals I had there was the best I've eaten yet in Asia. Were I the suit-wearing type, I might go there for an entirely new wardrobe. A tailor made Cashmere suit will only set you back about US $30 in Hoi An. The architechture is equally col, being a blend of Vietnamese, Chinese, French and Japanese influences. I loved it.

Travelling by train has also ben a gas. You really get to see the country. Yesterday, on the train ride from Danang to Ho Chi Minh City, we passed rice paddy after rice paddy being cultivated just as they were a thousand years ago. You'd see the local people in their conical hats with wooden implements hooked behind oxen, digging furrows in the muck barefoot. Ducks and pigs and chickens and cattle (oxen? water buffalo?) roam free in the paddies, and the rice is housed in large, conical bins made from straw. You could have come here at nearly any point in history and it would have looked exactly the same.

And now we're in Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon, where I find it impossible not to quote "Apocalypse Now!," just as I *had* to quote "Full Metal Jacket" in Hue. Sorry Harper. But if it weren't for pop culture, I'd have no culture at all.

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Goodbye, Crowded Planet
There are things you can't describe with words. Things you have to experience.

Two days ago, in Ha Long Bay, we paddled a leaky kayak through a hole in a rock to discover a hidden lagoon, surrounded on all sides by soaring cliff faces 80 meters or so high. Emerald water, with living coral just a few feet below the surface. Two beaches and a few small caves. Rock formations all along overhead. It was surreal, like nothing I've ever seen before.

We'd travelled to Ha Long with eight friends we met here in Vietnam. Six on the ride from the airport, and two who stayed on the boat with us the night before in Ha Long Bay. After a morning of trekking through the national forest on Cat Ba Island, we headed out on a boat with a few kayaks tied behind. Just as we left Cat Ba Town, it began to sprinkle. By the time we reached our kayaking spot, it was raining full on.

The rain was just the latest insult on what should have been (and was) a remarkable trip. Harper and I have been travelling independently; booking all our own transportation, the same transportation the locals use in all but one case. We act as our own guides. We do it ourselves. It's punk rock travel.

But in Vietnam, we didn't have our trusty Rough Guide that accompanied us through Thailand. Instead we had to rely on Lonely Planet--a book that essentially ensures you're going to see every other foreigner in any given area and no locals whatsoever (who aren't employed in the tourist industry, that is). Lonely Planet tells you where the tour operators are that can book you a cheap bus. Rough Guide tells you how to get to the bus station.

Whatever.

We (Harper and I plus our six friends from the airport ride) booked a tour of Ha Long Bay through a tour operator in Hanoi. A suggested operator in Lonely Planet. And so. Instead of 14 people on the boat, as promised, there were 60. Instead of private bearths below deck, we shared rooms (Harp and I lucked out and did not, but everyone else did). Instead of two person Kayaks, they were one person boats with only a single paddle, and we had to sit facing each other. The boat leaked. There was no guide. The only vegetarian meals we had we had to arrange on our own. It was a real bag of rats.

Whatever.

It was still a blast, due to the beauty of Ha Long Bay and Cat Ba, and the relentlessly positive group we were travelling with.

But the highlight of the trip was paddling through the sea cave, and emerging on the other side to find the rain had stopped, and that we were smack in the middle of paradise, of a theater of the mind.

The trip back to hanoi also had its share of excitement. All the tourist boats coming back that day were stopped by the Vietnamese police, who were checking everyone's passports and visas. Those unfortunate enough to not have their documents with them were taken off of the boats and sent to the police station on the mainland until they could prove they had permission to be in the country. We sat anchored in the bay for roughly four hours while this was sorted out.

The lesson here is to never, ever, EVER, leave your passport behind while you're travelling. Even if you don't have problems while you're out, you also hear stories of them being pilfered from rooms and hotel safes.

Upon returning, we borrowed a Rough Guide to find that, despite what it said in Lonely Planet, you could arrange independent travel to Ha Long and Cat Ba. Feeling a little down on ourselves for being tourists, we decided that we absolutely weren't taking LP's advice and using a travel agent to buy train tickets.

So today, we hiked down to the train station in Hanoi, literally elbowed our way to the front of the cluster (there are no lines at the Hanoi train station), and bought our tickets ourselves. Not only was this more satisfying than sitting on your duff while an operator does it all for you, but we saved nearly $30.

Upon returning to the Old Quarter, we picked up a used 2002 edition Rough Guide Vietnam for $5. Anyone want to buy a Lonely Planet South East Asia?

Cheap?

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Welcome to Vietnam
Will You Be Staying At The Classic Street Hotel?
Anh dang lam gi do!

Today we flew from Bangkok to Vietnam. We landed in Hanoi after a short flight (1.5 hour) on Air France. This is a beautiful country.

(A quick digression regarding French airlines: they are the bizomb. Not only did they have fantastic food, wine and cheese-- of which we've had scarcely any in the last six weeks--but the service is just unbeatable. I asked the flight attendant for two more wines after we finished the ones we had with lunch. I explained that we were from California, and drank wine just about every day, but had had none [okay, one glass] for the last six weeks. He smiles, and returns with two paper bags containing four bottles of vino. Not that Sutter Hill rotgut they serve on airlines in the states, but genuine fancypants French wine suitable for snobbing around with.)

The airport was completely unlike BKK in that it wasn't swarming with people, and there were no touts to be seen. Instead, a government employee took us to a Vietnam Airlines minibus (which was how we were planning to get into the city anyway). It was a $3 bus ride into Hanoi, proper, and there were 9 or 10 passengers altogether.

The ride in was gorgeous. Rice paddies and cornfields the whole way. The streets lined with bicycles and scooters, with decidedly more bikes than cars. Harper and I kept looking at each other and saying "critical mass," as it reminded us of both the car-free, take-over-the-streets movement that we ride in and the theory that was its inspiration. (Crital Mass began in SF after some cyclists watching films of Asia noted that when cyclists reached "critical mass" they could force their way past the cars.) Most of the women wore the hats that I've seen in every Vietnam movie ever made.

The city itself was beautiful too. Tall, narrow buildings, a la San Francisco or Charleston, with trees lining the streets. In the streets, which are swarming with cyclists and scooters, young men play soccer, vendors hawk food, and lights glitter all around.

Since we had paid three dollars, rather than two, the driver was to take us wherever we wanted in the old city. At least that was the idea. We had a guesthouse in mind, as did most of the other passengers. All of us were going to stay in the vicinity of Huan Kin Lake in the old quarter.

But we couldn't get the driver to understand where we wanted to go. Any of us. He dropped two women off at a Classic Street Hotel, and then we explained where we wanted to go: the Queen. We showed it to him on a map. He seems to get the picture. (By this time, Harper and I have decided to go with everyone else, who had made a group decision to focus on one hotel.) So he drives us around for a while and drops us at... another Classic Street Hotel. Everyone out of the van, except me an another guy who stay and watch the bags. The rooms are, apparantly, nice enough, but very loud. As a group, we decide to pass, mostly on principle. While inside, the driver revealed to one of the other guys in the van that he was the manager for said Classic Street Hotel.

We insist on being taken to the Queen. Okay. Fine. Back in the van. We drive for another ten or fifteen minutes to arrive at yet another (say it with me) Classic Street Hotel. Thankfully, this was a good group of travellers, and everyone kept their sense of humor and worked together to get us where we wanted to go. There was none of the whining and moaning we encountered on the VIP bus in Hua Hin.

But.

After an hour of tooling through old Hanoi the lying set in.

"You must take us to The Queen 2 because...

"our friends are staying there and expecting us"

"we already have a booking"

"I have hurt my leg and cannot walk that far"

Eventually, at the third or fourth or fifth Clasic Street Hotel, the manager of the hotel tells us that the driver cannot take us to the Q2 because streets of the old quarter are too narrow. But by now we've figured out where we are, and the troop of us set off through the streets. Unlike Bangkok, you don't see white people eveywhere, so the sight of eight caucasions with backpacks dodging scooters and bicycles with maps in hands must have been pretty amusing to passersby. It was to me, at least. Especially since, after reading all about pickpockets and bagsnatchers in our guidebooks, we're all madly clutching our packs.

But it was a hoot. We were all laughing and having a great time with it. And it was such a great introduction to the city and the country, and we made some new friends, some of whom we'll be travelling to Hualong Bat and Cat Ba Island with.

Tomorrow we head to the Hoa Lo Prison Museum, Hoa Lo Prison being better known in the States at the Hanoi Hilton. We're also heading to the Women's Museum and will try to see Uncle Ho, assuming he is back from his annual trip to Russia where he is, well, I don't know what exactly. Further preserved.

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Bangkok ! ,
When we first arrived in Bangkok (almost two months ago now) it seemed like the biggest party I'd ever been to, where I was the only one not on methamphetamine. Get me out of here! How things change.

Today, it's more like a big bar where everyone's had too much to drink and the dance music is a little too loud, but hey, it's Friday, right? Yeah, it's still flashy and the air stinks and there are one hundred and fifty things to look at in every direction. But where I once found it overwhelming and obnoxious, now it's just sort of too much after you've been here for a while, though quite nice at first.

Part of this, no doubt, has to do with where we're staying. We're a few blocks from Thanon Khao Son, on a quiet street on the water called Phra Arthit. It's chockablock full of artsy bars and coffe houses, tres San Francisco. Furthermore, we splurged on a 300 Baht room with air con and sweet, sweet hot water.

But still, it's funny how perceptions change.

Yesterday we went to the old capitaol Ayuthaya, which was sacked by the Burmese in the 18th century. It was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen in my life. It felt like walking through a cemetary. I could almost hear the dead. A gorgeous place. We rode the train up there, which was another thrill for me.

On the way back, however, we rode past slum after slum. Tin shacks thrown up next to the tracks. Festering poverty. We'd seen this in Bangkok before. It's stunning, how decrepit some of the conditions are. Particularly when you see a tin shack thrown up next to a grand hotel. It makes me realize that no matter how little I have, I'm a wealthy man. Forgive me.

Photos

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