Ask Chuck Hillig

In Maui and Beyond...

2006-06-28T11:50:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, the 24th, I left Hong Kong at 11 A.M. and flew to Manila for about two hours. Later in the afternoon, I took another plane to Honolulu and then a puddle-jumper over to Maui where I was to hook up with my oldest daughter, Chimene, her husband, John and my two grandchildren, Jasper and Kiana. Because there's an 18 hour difference between Hong Kong and Maui, I actually arrived in Maui at the same exact time that I left Hong Kong: 11 A.M. on Saturday, the 24th. My grandkids did not know that I was going to be there so it was a huge surprise when I showed up at the baggage claim area. My daughter and her husband rented a stunningly beautiful one bedroom condo on the western beach just north of Kaanapali with an outstanding view of the islands of Molokai and Lanai. We're just a few yards from the water's edge. We all went to one of the obligatory Hawaiian luaus that they have around here. This particular one (the Royal Lahaina Resort)is so successful that it pulls in several hundred tourists a night...seven days a week. Lots of great foods, traditional dances, fire displays and great fun for everyone.
My friend Gino is still in the US and emailed that he will be flying from San Jose to LAX tomorrow evening so there's a chance that we'll be able to hook up in L.A., too. It's amazing that I've seen this guy in Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Hong Kong and now in Los Angeles. What a great new friendship we're forming!
Well, my friends, I'm going to be signing off for a while. I'll pick up the blog again when I get back on the road in another month or so. Hope that you've enjoyed hitchhiking along on my adventures.

The last party...

2006-06-23T08:10:00.000-07:00

Steve and I took the MTR over to Lan Kwai Fong on Hong Kong Island. It's actually a one square block area that's been shut off to vehicular traffic. Along both sides of the streets, there are many dozens of bars and restaurants (mostly bars) that cater to both the locals and to the tourists. Since they are contiguous to each other, you can easily swagger (or stagger) from one bar to the next with no problem whatsoever. The Lan Kwai Fong area is on a hill, so you are required to either walk up or down the streets looking for...well, for whatever you want. I'm quite sure that everything that you're looking for can be found here.
Looking at them from the street, most of the bars are about 25 feet wide but they appear to be at least a hundred feet deep...maybe deeper. Lots of contrasting music blares out from each of these establishments and the entire atmosphere in this area is electric and even celebratory. Naturally, there are a lot of Westerners walking these streets and enjoying the in-your-face kind of ambiance. The street, itself, is only about 30 feet wide (remember, there are no cars) and so everyone uses it to freely wander between bars...both uphill and downhill. Additionally, there are many other notable bars which have rented rooms in the floors above the main streets so you have to also "think vertically." Yes, this place has to be experienced at night after 9 P.M. on a weekend to be fully believed. Lots of fun and very extraordinary. However, since I had to leave at 7 A.M. tomorrow, Steve and I had an early sushi dinner, a few beers with another friend (Tim and his girlfriend, Jessica,) and then we left for home so that I could begin to pack. Tomorrow, I'm off for Maui. More later...

Last day in Hong Kong...

2006-06-23T02:38:00.000-07:00

Since today turned out to be an absolutely glorious day, Steve and I decided to take the ferry over to one of the outlying islands around Hong Kong. There are about 235 of these islands with Lantau (the home of Disneyland, their new international airport and the Giant Buddha statue) being the largest(about twice the size of Hong Kong Island.) We had both been to Lantau Island before and so we decided to go over to Cheung Chau, another much smaller island about one square mile in size. It's got a large expat population living here and the principle industry is tourism and fishing. The waterfront area has a lot of shops and restaurants that cater to the tourists and the energy here is very low-key and noticeably quite different from the frenetic energy that pulsates in Kowloon and on Hong Kong Island. Since this was my last night in HK, after a swim back at the apartment, Steve and I headed out to the local "party central" on HK Island...a small several block area known as Lan Kwai Fong. More later....

Jackie Chan....

2006-06-22T02:00:00.000-07:00

Last night, (Wednesday) Lorraine, Steve and I went to Dan Ryan's Chicago Grill down near the Star Ferry station at Central. Very nice atmosphere and it reminded me of many of the great restaurants that I have been in around my home town of Chicago.
Thursday morning, Lorraine had to pack for her quick 4-day trip to California. She's leaving at 11 P.M. tonight and won't be returning to HK until Monday. This afternoon, though, she had to play host to the film star, Jackie Chan. Today, he was the Guest of Honor at the Design School (which Lorraine heads up) at Hong Kong Polytecnic University. This afternoon was their formal graduation for the year and, with Jackie Chan in attendence, the Hong Kong Press was out in full force. There must have been more than fifty reporters and cameramen present from every local TV station...all vying for Jackie's attention. He was incredibly patient and gracious with everyone and took the time to make sure that everyone had an opportunity to take photographs, etc. Jackie is considered to be a full Professor at the Design School and has always been one of its biggest supporters. In fact, he stated that he, himself, had designed the clothes that he was wearing today. Lorraine, Steve and I (along with the University President and a few important CEOs of Design around HK) greeted Jackie when he arrived at the University and Lorraine provided the general introductions. Before the ceremony, I got a great shot of Lorraine and Jackie together and, later, the Webmaster who handles Jackie's website asked me for a copy so that she could put it up on his website.
My time in Hong Kong is getting increasingly short, and I'm acutely aware that, 48 hours from now, I'm going to be somewhere out over the Pacific on my way back to the States. (Sigh.) Well, as we all know, whatever has a beginning, though, must also have an ending. More later. After all, there's still one more day to enjoy in this very fascinating city.

Victoria Peak

2006-06-21T02:44:00.000-07:00

The Peak Tram (originally steam powered) starts its eight- minute scenic climb just across the street and around the corner from the American Consulate. It makes its way up to the summit of 1305 feet to a breath-taking view of the harbor below. The Peak is still the most fashionable place to live in Hong Kong and the real estate prices are astronomical. For example, the average rent here is around HK$50,000 a month or more. (That's about US$7000.00). The tram has been in operation since 1888 and has only stopped for typoons and during World War II.
Since Wednesday turned out to be fair and clear, I thought that it would be a good idea to take the tram up to the top again. As usual,I took the Star Ferry across the water in order to get over to HK Island, and then I hoofed it up to the bottom of the tram. I had been up to Victoria Peak twice before...once in 1988 and again in 1998...but the view there is so incredibly spectacular that I wanted to see it again. Everytime I go up there, there are more shops and attractions for the tourists. Now, for example, there's a new four level shopping center (the Peak Galleria) with many new shops and restaurants to attract the tourists. (Yes, even McDonalds is up there, too.)
After I took the MTR back to Kowloon, Steve and I went for a swim and a jacuzzi in the courtyard pool. Tomorrow, Lorraine's taking us to some kind of function over at HK Polytechnic University to meet Jackie Chan. Should be fun. More later...

Over to Macau...

2006-06-20T04:53:00.000-07:00

Today dawned fairly clear and so I decided to head on over to Macau. As I had mentioned in an earlier post, Macau was initially a Portugese colony (much like Goa was in India) and, in fact, they still accept their currency over there. Many of the signs posted around are also in Portugese as well as in Chinese and English. I took the Star Ferry over to Hong Kong Island and walked a quarter mile to another terminal where I caught the turbojet catamaran to Macau, a trip lasting about an hour. Since you're leaving Hong Kong proper, you have to go through immigration to get your passport stamped in and out of both HK and Macau. When I was in Macau back in 1988, I think that they only had one or two casinos. Now, however, there are about 23 of them....including two huge ones currently being built by the MGM and by Steve Wynn...both of Las Vegas. They should be opened by the end of the summer. The boats run between Hong Kong Island and Macau every 15 minutes so there's no problem in getting a seat.
The money in Hong Kong is colorful but a bit confusing until you understand that the same denomination bills often look very different from each other...not because one is the newer version of the bill but because the official HK money is actually put out by different banks in the area. However, it's all considered to be legal tender.
Another thing that impresses me about HK is their incredible ability to move people from one place to another. Not only is their subway system second to none in the world, (my opinion) but they have also constructed miles and miles of well-lit walkways above the traffic that are used to funnel pedestrians away from street level by allowing them to walk for many many blocks without having to hassle with the street traffic below. For example, when I took the Star Ferry to HK Island a few days ago, I was able to walk all the way to Wan Chai on one of these walkways...almost a mile away...without ever going down to the street at all. It's incredibly convenient. They also have created an elaborate system of pedestrian tunnels to link subway stations and key points around HK. There are some new buildings on HK Island that are so beautiful that you just have to reach for your camera. Needless to say, I think that, on many levels, Hong Kong is a very impressive city. More later...

Lazy days in Hong Kong...

2006-06-18T20:03:00.000-07:00

The Temple Street night market is a shoppers' paradise. Everything of interest to the tourist is offered here at the stalls that stretch down both sides of the street for about five blocks. There are, naturally, lots of Westerners, lots of noise and lots of heavy-duty body heat that's generated by the wall-to-wall crowds. At one end of Temple Street, there are also dozens of psychics and fortune tellers, etc. who will be happy to read your face, palms, tarot, astrology chart, etc. to predict your future. As modern as Hong Kong is, they still put great stock in mystical/magical traditions that border on superstition. For example, a few of the most modern buildings near the water here are constructed with large holes through the entire building. These holes might be several stories high and, perhaps, a hundred feet across and they're actually designed into the building in order to assure that the powerful Dragon (a very important symbol in Chinese lore) has direct access to the sea.
The weather in HK is still a bit overcast, and so I'm going to tentatively delay my trip to Macau until Wednesday. Also, I came down with a case of larangytis from the combination of super-cold air conditioning and cigar smoke that we had to endure a few days ago at "Joe Bananas." Consequently, I've decided to take it slow for a few days in order to rest up before taking the hydrofoil over to Macau on Wednesday. More later...

A room with a view...

2006-06-16T20:31:00.000-07:00

Steve and Lorraine have graciously allowed me to stay with them during my remaining days in Hong Kong. They live with their daughter, Alexa, on the 43rd floor of a luxurious apartment building in Kowloon that's about six blocks from the water. Their apartment looks south across the half a mile of water that separates Kowloon from Hong Kong Island. Like the other rooms in the apartment, the bedroom where I am staying has an unobstructed view that is truly breathtaking. For those of you familiar with the area, we're directly across from the Convention Center on HK Island and about halfway between the two piers where the well-known Star Ferry has operated since 1888 between Kowloon and the Island. Across the water and to the right, we can see Victoria Peak and the tram. In the harbor below, there is always boat traffic with ships of every size (including the Star Ferry, of course) providing an ever-changing kaleidescope of activity out on the water. At night, the lights in the buildings across the water transform the entire panorama into something almost mystical and other-worldly...particularly if there's fog or low-lying clouds.
Yesterday, Steve and I went to see "The Omen" which turned out to be a re-make of the original 70's film with Gregory Peck. Not too bad, if you like that sort of thing. Last night, I took the Star ferry across the harbor to meet up with Cedrick in Wan Chai. This tourist/ex-pat area of the city, (filled with bars, pole-dancers, restaurants, bistros, etc.) became well-known as the backdrop of an old movie with William Holden called "The World of Susie Wong." Cedrick and I went to Joe Bananas, a popular hangout for ex-pats and watched a bit of the World Cup with Peri, one of his co-workers. Frankly, after traveling in southeast Asia for the past three months, I had not seen so many westerners gathered in one place. As you might expect on a Friday night, the HK "working girls" were out in full force in Wan Chai. Cedrick had to email some information that evening to Gino so he and Peri went on home around 11 P.M. while I continued to drift around until after midnight to sample more of the colorful ambiance of this fascinating area. The Star ferry stops working that late, so I took the MTR (subway) back to Lorraine's place. Like it is in Tokyo, the subway system in Hong Kong is clearly marked with directions/instructions in both Chinese and English. Consequently, it's very easy to travel through the maze of inter-connecting subway lines with a minimum of concern. Everything is very clean, bright and entirely safe. The crime rate in HK is amazingly quite low...especially considering that there are about 8 miliion people living here. The Triads, however, seem to exert a lot of control over the local businesses and even pressure the local merchants to pay protection money. Another oddity: although HK is a thoroughly modern city, they still use the traditional bamboo scaffolding in order to erect and maintain their high-rise buildings. After dinner tonight, we're all going to visit the Temple Street night market which is famous for offering a wide selection of very inexpensive items displayed for the shoppers in a maze of stalls. Cedrick and I are still planning to take a boat over to Macau tomorrow and Alexa is leaving for Atlanta, Georgia, on Monday. The weather in HK remains hot and humid. More later...

Hong Kong Polytechnic University...

2006-06-13T23:08:00.000-07:00

When I was hanging around the university today while Gino was attending various meetings, I noticed that Hong Kong resident, Jackie Chan was giving a lecture in the Jockey Club Auditorium about his long relationship with the movies and with his interest in promoting tourism in this area. Since he was speaking in Cantonese, they gave me a headset for the translation. He's very funny and genuine in his presentation and the audience thoroughly enjoyed his talk/interview. Later on in the evening, we had a working dinner at the restaurant on the 14th floor of the university. Gino and Lorraine were there, of course, but joining us for the roundtable discussion were: Ian, Frank, Derek, Myle, Stewart, Merle, Phillip and Cary. The discussion centered around the ways that each of us could create future courses for the university that would focus on helping the students to expand both their creativity and their consciousness.
I noticed that the restaurant provided everyone with two different sets of chopsticks: one black and one white. When I asked about it, I was told that they had started that practice during the SARS outbreak several years ago. The idea was to use the black chopsticks to move the food placed on the lazy susan to your plate and then to use the white chopsticks to actually put the food into your mouth. Although their concern about SARS has passed, they are still following this practice at the university restaurant.
Tonight, Gino is taking a late flight to LA and I'm moving over to Lorraine's apartment closer into the city and within walking distance to the university. Cedrick and I are still planning to head on over to Macau in a few days. More later...

Hanging around Hong Kong....

2006-06-12T23:30:00.000-07:00

On Friday evening, Gino and I met up with Lorraine Justice who runs the School of Design at Hong Kong Polytechnic University and is considered to be one of the world's most influential designers. A thoroughly delightful evening at every level.
When I first visited Hong Kong in 1988 (and again in 1998), I remember how surprised I was that so many of the aparment buildings...often 50, 60 or 70 floors high...were also so incredibly thin and narrow. If you were going to build something that high in the US, they always seemed to create a much wider base. Or, at least, taper it up towards the top so that it was not like a straight-edge. Not so over here. The streets in Kowloon and on Hong Kong Island are packed with very thin, narrow high-rise buildings that shoot straight up to dizzying heights with absolutely no break in their outward shells. Some of them look like they could tip over in a major typhoon.
On Saturday, we hung around Gino's house and went swimming with the kids. On Sunday, Lily (Gino's wife), their three kids, and I took a 2-hour hike into the hills overlooking the city. Although the weather is still remaining a bit rainy, the views along the walking trail are still very impressive. Afterwards, the whole family and I joined Lily's family at their weekly Sunday brunch at an exclusive country club nearby. Excellent food and I got a chance to meet some of Lily's siblings as well as her 85-year old father (the patriarch of the family) and her stepmother. On Sunday night, we had a private dinner with Lily's parents and one of her sisters (a professional actress and singer) at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University where Gino is an Associate Professor. Afterwards, Gino and I went over to visit Lorraine and her family at their apartment on the 43rd floor. They live in a super-modern apartment building with an absolutely outrageous view of the city and of the harbor beyond. We had some wine and enjoyed a fascinating conversation with Cory, a friend of Lorraine and Gino's. Monday was a "work day" so we went into the Gino's office so that he could handle the myriad of things that he still has to take care of before he leaves tomorrow for two weeks in the US.
After work, we took a bus to an area of the city called Mong Kok. This is the best place to purchase anything of an electronic nature: cell phones, TVs, Ipods, video games, gadgets, headphones, etc. etc. They shut streets off to vehicular traffic and so the pedestrians take over until very late in the evening. The atmosphere is energetic and even celebratory. With the bright lights coming from all of the electronic stores and malls, it seemed as bright as midday even though it was close to 11 P.M. by the time we left.
After Gino leaves late Wednesday evening, I will probably begin staying with Lorraine and her family in their high-rise apartment. Meanwhile, Cedrick (Gino's employee that I had first met in Kuala Lumpur) and I are tentatively planning to head over to Macau (via boat) this weekend for further adventures. Macau was originally a Portugese colony (much like Goa in India), and is the closest thing to Las Vegas that China has going right now. In fact, Steve Wynn is currently building a US$1.1 billion dollar casino there right now. I remember doing some lightweight gambling in Macau when I first visited there in 1988, but I'm sure that things have grown a lot since then. Happily, you don't need to have a Chinese visa in order to visit Macau, and the place is considered to be extremely safe with the residents there all enjoying a very high life's expectancy. Tonight, we're going to all get together with Lorraine again for further fascinating conversations.
Meanwhile, though, I'm acutely aware that my three month trip around southeast Asia is slowly beginning to wind down...at least for a while. As it stand now, I've scheduled myself to fly to Maui (via Manila) on Saturday, June 24th, in order to spend a few days with my vacationing oldest daughter, Chimene, her husband, John, and their two kids, Jasper and Kiana. After that, it'll be back to California. More later...

Back to Hong Kong...

2006-06-08T23:40:00.000-07:00

On my last night in the Philippines, I checked out the local TV and was surprised to discover that the actors on some of their shows would switch back and forth between speaking Talagog and English...sometimes right in the middle of a sentence. Rather odd and a bit disconcerting.
In the morning, I took a motorbike at 5 A.M. from the hotel to the boat landing for the 20-minute ride across the bay to Caticlan. From there, I had to get a 3-wheel motorized tricycle to the airport for my one hour flight back to Manila. From there, it was off to Hong Kong.
Although the weather was mostly clear, the trip across the open water in the 747 was the bumpiest that I had ever experienced on such a big plane. Pretty intense for a while. Anyway, we landed without incident at Hong Kong's relatively new international airport. I had been to Hong Kong twice before (1988 and 1998) and was looking forward to seeing it again. I bought a ticket on the Airport Express...the fast train that goes into Kowloon and Hong Kong...and called Gino to tell him when I'd be arriving. The exchange rate here is about 7.7 Hong Kong dollars to one US dollar. Because of Hong Kong's long history with England, the traffic here all drives on the left. Once you leave Hong Kong proper and enter what was once "mainland China," however, the traffic flow quickly switches over to the right for the rest of the country. Gino and I hooked up at one of the restaurants at the City Center where I met an old friend of his named Matt Hutchison. After that, Gino and I took the train back to his house, and I finally had a chance to meet his charming wife, Lili and their three brilliant kids ages 6, 4 and 3. Gino showed me some of the nuances of the outrageous sound system that he's set up in his home, and I quickly developed a new appreciation of Pink Floyd.
On Friday, their driver drove the three of us into town where Lili had to be dropped off for a meeting. Afterwards, Gino and I went over to the Merecl office on the seventh floor of a super-modern building overlooking the bay. A magnificant view with floor-to-ceiling windows facing the water. The weather today is bit nasty with lots of thunder, lightning and rain. Since it started storming last night, hopefully, it will improve later on tonight. More later...

Last day in Boracay...

2006-06-07T00:04:00.000-07:00

The weather yesterday (Tuesday) was spectacular and I took advantage of it by swimming for several hours at the section of beach in front of my little hotel. The water is warm, crystal-clear and the steady onshore breeze created just enough wave action to make it interesting. I had heard that there were a few noisy night clubs at the north end of White Beach. Being naturally curious, I took a motorbike over to the area to check them out. Lots of blaring music, open bars, dancers of every age all gyrating to the pulsating beat of western music from over-sized speakers. Out on the beach and fairly close to the water, they had placed dozens of low tables and cushions for people to sit on. Each of the tables, big enough to have four people or more sitting around them, had a lit candle-lantern. With the pounding music, the frenetic dancers, the shimmering moon reflected off of the water, etc., it was, as they say, a real moment: chaotic and beautiful at the same time.
Today, (Wednesday) I went with a few locals to the bat cave that a reader of this blog had mentioned in his Comment. Wow! What a trip that was. After bouncing around in a motorized tricyle for 20 minutes, we still had to hoof it through the jungle to the cave itself. Although I had been in many caves in my life, all of them had been "prepped" for tourists. This bat cave, however, offered no such accommodation. You had make your way down a very treacherous opening. Everything was pristine just as all caves are before man intrudes and commercializes them. At the bottom of the cave, (a descent of about 75 feet,) we walked over to an area to the back and saw pools of clear turquoise water. The pools were exposed to the sunlight coming from an unseen source beyond, and it gave off an other-worldly glow. The bats, of course, hung from the ceiling and remained mostly out of sight. In the water, there were small fish about 5 inches in length, and we even had a glimpse of several poisonous sea snakes. The air was heavy and humid at the bottom of the cave and everyone was sweating profusely. The trip out of the cave was equally dangerous since we only had one flashlight among the three of us. Luckily, we all made it back unscathed, but I'm quite sure that other visitors to this particular cave aren't always that fortunate. Tonight, I plan to get an outrigger to take me out on the bay to better view the awesome sunsets that they have here on a regular basis. Tomorrow (Thursday), I'm scheduled to take an early flight to Manila and then to head over to Hong Kong to hook up with Gino again. More later...

Is Boracay Paradise...?

2006-06-05T00:18:00.000-07:00

Early Monday morning, I flew south from Manila down to Boracay, about 90 minutes by plane. I had first learned about this place from Gino and, when I checked it out further, it seemed like it would be an ideal place to kick back for a few days before flying off to Hong Kong. You first fly to a town called Caticlan and then you have to take a tuk-tuk to the docks to catch an outrigger for the 20-minute boat ride over to Boracay Island. Since the boat has to anchor a bit offshore, they have local guys who, quite literally, carry you and your luggage on their shoulders through the water and then deposit you safely on the sand. (All for a price, of course.) The island is famous for its pristine beaches and, indeed it truly lives up to its reputation. The main part of the island (appropriately called White Beach) is well-known for all kinds of water sports: sailing, scuba diving, snorkling, parasailing, swimming and, especially extreme wind surfing. There is an ongoing balmy breeze that flows onshore and, I understand, they have international competition for windsurfers held here every year. The water near the shore is a brilliant turquoise and it laps gently onto the spotless white beach that stretches for several miles. The beach itself is between 50 and 100 feet in width. After that, it's lined with an long section of palm trees and other tropical vegetation that's about 20 feet deep and is often surrounded with foot-high bamboo fences. Right next to this green area is a 25-foot wide walkway of white sand that stretches for miles in both directions to handle the steady pedestrian traffic. On the side that's away from the water, this walkway is lined with shops, picturesque hotels, restaurants, bars, nightclubs, etc. that cater to the many tourists. Among the vegetation, enterprising sellers have erected makeshift stands and are hawking necklaces, postcards, sunglasses, massages, etc. There are also little pedal-driven bicycles with passenger sidecars that transport the weary walkers from one end of the beach to the other...all for about 7 pesos. At night, I imagine that this walkway will become a fairyland of colorful lights, music, and enticing smells coming from the wide variety of restaurants.
In the evening, I found a small restaurant between Station 2 and Station 3 that was owned and managed by a Frenchman. At his suggestions, I tried the chicken curry. As I was finishing up, I noticed an attractive young woman checking out the menu, and I casually remarked to her that the food here was very good. She decided to sit at the table next to mine and, since she was alone, we quickly struck up a conversation. Her name was Julie and she said that she was from Korea. We spent the next 45 minutes talking about a wide variety of different subjects, and we seemed to genuinely enjoy each other's company. Afterwards, several of her friends came by to pick her up since she was flying back to Manila with them in the morning. I gave her my card and she said that she would keep in touch. As I've mentioned before in this blog, the conversations that show up with the fascinating and delightful people that you meet "on the road" are among the greatest joys of traveling. More later as it unfolds....

Around Manila...

2006-06-03T00:10:00.000-07:00

Manila has a major problem with traffic. Ironically, the pollution helps to create the magnificent sunsets on Manila Bay. The cars and other vehicles run on diesel and leaded gasoline and you spend a lot of time just idling your engine. The poverty here is out in the open. For example, just walking around the streets near my hotel, you could see whole families stretched out on the sidewalk sleeping. As an obvious Westerner, I was immediately targeted by street vendors and sad-eyed kids looking for a handout. Gambling is legal here, and so I decided to walk through the casino at the Hyatt Hotel. Pretty unimpressive by Las Vegas standards but people seemed to be enjoying themselves. There are a lot of karaoke bars around and the locals never miss a chance to belt out a well-lubricated song for their friends. Lots of great fun for all. More later...

"The Thrilla in Manila..."

2006-06-02T05:27:00.000-07:00

On Thursday, I took an early flight from Singapore northeast to Manila. The night before, though, we went to Raffles Hotel, the home of the "Singapore Sling." Gino had to hang around in town to attend some meetings before he was scheduled to fly back to Hong Kong in the late afternoon. My flight took over three hours and was uneventful. I got a good price on the ticket but, as expected, I had to pay for everything extra that I wanted....even bottled water. I took the time to scan the latest Lonely Planet edition on the region. Amazingly, there are over 7000 islands in the Philippines. The currency here is the Peso, and you can exchange one US dollar for about 52.8 pesos. Since there is a lot of traffic and air pollution in the city, a lot of the local residents head for the waterfront in the evening to enjoy the sunset and to eat at the hundreds of tables put up along the quay wall by the mini-restaurants, bars and music venues that extend along a strip here (about 70' wide) for well over a mile. Every few hundred feet or so was another small stage with a live performer or band belting out some familiar western song. As you might suspect, it was very crowded with couples, families, groups of teenagers, etc. and the atmosphere was very festive and even celebratory. Offshore, small multi-decked ships, serving dinner and drinks to the tourists, cruised back and forth along the waterfront.
Today (Friday) I was invited to have lunch with some friends of Gino who own and operate Holy Cow Animation studios. Gino had arranged our cyber-meeting a few days ago, and so they knew that I was coming to Manila. They even sent a driver over to the hotel to pick me up, and I was very delighted to be treated by Marlyn and her husband to some typical Philippine food. Really quite good. In the afternoon, I booked a flight to Borocay, (a resort area an hour by air south of here), for Monday and "Plan-A" is to kick back on the beach for several days. I'll fly back to Manila early Thursday morning and then catch a mid-afternoon flight over to Hong Kong. More later...

Last day in Singapore...

2006-05-30T20:47:00.000-07:00

After Gino's two presentations at the Science Center in Singapore on Tuesday, we met with a friend of his for a late dinner. Like Gino, Lin is also a person with a fascinating combination of right-brain/left-brain energy. Currently, she works independently as a graphic digital artist, musician and published poet as well as being thoroughly familiar with the techie-language that Gino is able to bandy about with cavalier ease. Since we were all high-energy people, the three of us created a great evening together.
The weather in Singapore has been fair and clear. Being only a few degrees north of the equator, it's normally pretty warm here...even late in the evening. The exchange rate is about one US dollar = 1.57 Singapore dollars. This is one city that works pretty well. They have their own currency and have created an infrastructure on this island nation that supports their sophisticated lifestyle.
Gino is flying back to Hong Kong tomorrow. Initially, I thought that I'd be going on to Bali but, after checking out the cost of the flight, I decided, instead, to spend a week in Manila before heading over to Hong Kong around the 8th to hook up with Gino again. This time, I'll be able to meet his wife and three kids. During that first week in June, Gino has to attend a conference in Bejing, and then, in mid-June, he's heading over to the States.
I had briefly considered going down to Yogyakarta, Indonesia, to see if I could be of some assistance with their current challenges (earthquake & volcano). However, I eventually decided that there was really little help that I could offer them other than contributing to the relief effort in a financial way. I had spent several days in Yogyakarta back in 1988 and I remember it well. Quick Note: If you have some way to contribute $$$ to the many agencies working with the tens of thousands who have lost everything over there, I strongly encourage you to do. It wouldn't be out of pity. It's just the compassionate thing to do because true compassion can only occur between equals. More later...

Kuala Lumpur and Singapore...

2006-05-28T23:20:00.000-07:00

I flew down to Kuala Lumpur and found my way over to the Marriott where I was to meet up with Gino Yu. (The Malaysian currency is the Ringgit and the rate of exchange is approximately 1 USD = 3.6 Ringgits). Gino had been attending a conference all day and so we didn't get a chance to hook up until later in the evening. When we did, however, we immediately discovered how well we connected with each other on both a mental and a spiritual level. Amazingly, it even turned out that Gino and I had been born in the very same hospital in Chicago! Unfortunately, though, I was still struggling with the bug that I had picked up in Cambodia and so, on Thursday, I had to get some medication from the hotel's in-house doctor. Cedrick, an employee of Gino's in Hong Kong, joined us on Friday, and the three of us took a cab into downtown Kuala Lumpur and checked into another very nice hotel. Cedrick used to work for George Lucas (Industrial Light & Magic) on such projects as Star Wars: The Attack of the Clones. On Saturday, we were driven around by Alwee, a new friend of Gino's, who is interested in facilitating academic projects that would assist in the growth of Malaysia in general and of KL in particular. Besides being driven around the city, we also had an opportunity to visit the extraordinary twin towers in KL that had been made famous by appearing in a recent thriller with Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Since 9-11, however, they only allow about 1000 people a day to go up to the crosswalk that connects the towers at the 40th floor, but, since Alwee had some friends on the 62nd, level, we were able to go up to that level to check out the awesome view. When Alwee and I had accidentally gotten off the elevator at the 60th floor, we were immediately confronted by armed guards who were on duty at the Al-Jezeera TV studio. Very funny to see their reactions (it was a weekend and they weren't expecting anyone to show up at the studio) but they were both deadly serious and not smiling at all.
On Sunday, Cedrick flew back to Hong Kong, and Gino and I took a 5-hour bus trip from Kuala Lumpur down to Singapore. Gino had been hired to present several lectures on Tuesday (tomorrow) and his Hosts had paid for a hotel room for him until Thursday. Happily, he invited me to, once again, share his hotel room in order to continue our ongoing discussions about philosophy, psychology and our world-view. Very energizing and fascinating stuff, and we're reallly enjoying each other's company. In fact, Gino has invited me to spend a few days with him and his family in Hong Kong after he finishes up attending (and presenting) at yet another conference in Bejing at the beginning of June. I'll fly to either Bali or Manila on Thursday and then find my way over to HK around the 8th.
Singapore is quite a modern city...very clean and unpoluted. As they do in Malaysia, the drivers in Singapore also keep to the left side of the road. Only in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia do they continue to drive on the right...thanks to their historical connections with France.
I'm happy to report that my body is feeling much better these days. More later...

Phnom Penh...again

2006-05-28T07:50:00.000-07:00

I left Siem Reap on Monday and took a bus down to Phnom Penh. I had decided against taking the boat down the Mekong because I felt that I'd see more of Cambodia from the window of the bus than I would from a boat in the middle of the lake. We drove for miles through dry, open fields that were criss-crossed with small birms waiting to catch the water from the monsoon rains at the end of the year. I was told that they get at least two full rice crops out of the fields every year. Along the way, we passed thousands of unpainted shacks that lined the road between small non-descript towns. Lots of people just hanging around the houses and, of course, lots of young kids playing games with whatever they could find.
In Phnom Penh, I checked into the same hotel that I was at seven weeks ago and took some time to walk for a while along the riverfront. There were several groups of about eight men who were playing an interesting variation of kickball. They were kicking around some kind of weighted ball that had been wrapped in a plastic sleeve about 10 inches long. The men would stand in a circle about thirty feet in diameter and kick the ball to the guy across the circle. They would use their elbows, knees and, most amazingly, would often bend one of their legs at the knee and, without looking behind them, kick the ball back across the circle. Very impressive and, quite understandably, these groups had a large audiences.
For the first time since I had left California, I had begun to feel a bit sick and figured that it must have been the strange soup that I had shared with that wedding party in Siem Reap on Sunday. After first trying (unsuccessfully) the Auruvedic medication that I had brought from India, I finally relented and took some Immodium. Unfortunately, however, that didn't work either. I knew that it could be a rough trip on the flight Wednesday down to Kuala Lumpur to meet Gino Yu, an academic involved in digital entertainment from Hong Kong. Gino is attending a conference in KL with a colleague, Cedrick Chan (who is also a blogger http://adventures-of-cedrick.blogspot.com/) and had generously invited me to share his hotel room while I was in town. He had come across a copy of "Enlightenment for Beginners" in Ojai while recently attending a Krishnamurti conference and and sent me an email about a month ago. When we discovered that we would be, more or less, in the same neighborhood about the same time, he made the kind offer to get together in Kuala Lumpur. More later...

Last day in Siem Reap...

2006-05-20T19:17:00.000-07:00

Very early this morning, I rented a bike (US$1.50 for all day) and decided that I wanted to pedal through a lot of the side streets and quieter markets around town. As I was going along, I heard a lot of music and discovered that several hundred people were gathered on a patio for some kind of major celebration. Everyone was dressed up in their best clothes and they told me that they were there to help a young couple celebrate their marriage. Because of the soaring temperatures that occur later in the day, all of this party activity was taking place at 7 A.M.! I was cordialliy invited to sit at one of the tables and was quickly offered many kinds of food and drink. Although I had just eaten breakfast an hour earlier, I felt obliged to share at least some of what they were so graciously offering to me. After hanging around for about 30 minutes or so, I took my leave and they gave me a bag of sugar cookies to take with me. Within a few blocks, I saw four young girls and their mother sitting by their wooden shack and delighted them all by handing them the bag of goodies. When I got to the main park in town, I saw that it was crowded with hundreds of young students ...ages 7-14...who were at a rally to stop child hunger in Cambodia. It was sponsored by the UN and was being facilitated be a number of local volunteers and folks from Oz and the UK. Seeing that I was a westerner, a few of them came over to me to tell me what was going on. After several speeches, the kids formed a long line and set off to march three kilometers around town to draw attention to their cause. They were all dressed up in similar uniforms and wore special hats. Since I had to stick with the rented bike, I made a donation to help them out. While I was there, I asked one of the Brits about those strange birds that I had seen several nights ago and which were, in fact, beginning to swarm above the trees as we were speaking. She said that they were, indeed, very large bats and that they make their homes in the trees above the park. When I was on Tonga in 1988, I remembered also seeing huge black bats hanging upside down from trees during the day and looking a lot like gothic Christmas tree ornaments. Very cool and, like bats everywhere, they eat a lot of insects so their presence is most welcomed by the locals.
When I was walking around Angkor Thom yesterday afternoon, I thought that these temples would never be able to be opened to the public in the U.S. without undergoing major alterations. There are just too many ways to get hurt as you're climbing around these structures. For example, there are no guard rails anywhere, the stone-block floors are uneven (and sometimes slippery), and, in the dark tunnels, it would be very easy to twist your ankle or worse. I'm sure that many people get hurt out there everyday because of a single moment of carelessness. In the U.S. (the litigation capitol of the world) people would be constantly suing the operators. Wisely, the Cambodians insist that everyone knows the risks of walking around these buldings, and that they should be responsible for their own safety. (Wow! What an original idea!) I'm taking an early bus down to Phnom Penh tomorrow morning, but who know what further adventures await for me today? After all, it's not even 10 A.M. More later...

Around Siem Reap...

2006-05-20T04:00:00.000-07:00

Today I decided to take a look at the so-called "floating village" that makes its home in the large lake just south of the city. The 2500 people who live on the water earn their living as fishermen much like they do in the floating villages that I saw on the Mekong River coming into Chou Doc, Vietnam, as well as those around Ha Long Bay near Hanoi. The big difference, however, is in the sheer number of folks who live their entire lives out here on this lake. The homes are made out of anything that floats: e.g. a delapidated boat, or, perhaps, they've erected a shed or some kind of wooden structure on a small rectangular barge. Several of them may be tied together but, more often than not, each one is floating independently of the others. The kids living here have little chance to improve their lives. Since the government in Cambodia doesn't provide public education, their options are definitely limited. The long and bumpy road to the shore of the lake is lined on both sides with run-down wooden sheds...some as small as 12 x 12...and each one crammed with still more families...all with lots of kids. The poverty along here is staggering, and, according to my driver, the average family in this area earns less than US$250 a year.
After spending several hours around the floating village, I got back to town around noon and hired a tuk-tuk to take me out to see Angkor Thom again. My first day at the temples last Thursday was mostly taken up with learning the history of the buildings from a profesional guide and walking through the main areas. However, I wanted to have another look at the larger temples but to do it at a slower pace. Yesterday, I had re-visited Angkor Wat and so today, I wanted to poke around Angkor Thom for a few more hours. There are many large stone carvings (perhaps 40 feet high) on the outside walls of Angkor Thom that depict Buddha with his enigmatic smile. There are so many passageways, stone pillars, and tunnels and you can easily get disoriented. If you've ever stood in line to visit the Indiana Jones "Temple of Doom" ride at Disneyland, you have some small idea of the hallways and corridors of Angkor Thom. I'm quite sure that, whoever designed the Disney ride was familiar with the temples here at Angkor. As I had mentioned yesterday in my blog, the east entrance to this particular temple was highlighted in the Angelie Jolie Tomb Raider movie. Last night, I met a young fellow from Vancouver named Ian who was traveling for a while before he returned to Canada. We both agreed that traveling to other countries was enormously rewarding at many levels. When I was his age (18), you were expected to work during the summer and to prepare yourself to go immediately to the university the first September after graduating from high school. Nobody...and I mean nobody...ever seriously considered taking a year or two off to see the world before continuing their journey into adulthood. Back then, it just wasn't done. Times have definitely changed. On this trip alone, I've met hundreds of fellow travelers in the early 20's who are taking a "time out" before pursuing any higher education. More later...

The Temples of Angkor...

2006-05-19T03:20:00.000-07:00

Last night, I strolled through the downtown area of Siem Reap. In the last few years, hundreds of new businesses have opened here...mostly catering to the influx of tourists who have come to marvel at the nearby temples. There are even several 3,4, and 5 star resorts that have opened their doors, too. Many ordinary expats have also set up restaurants and bars downtown and every nationality of food is offered at very reasonable prices. For example, you can get a beer for about US$0.75 and "Happy Hour" usually goes from 2 P.M. to closing. A full meal will set you back about US$3.00. The US dollar is king here, and our currency is easily intermixed with the Cambodian Riel which has a steady 4000:1 exchange rate. Some observations: 1) Although they drive on the right side of the road here like they do in Vietnam and Laos (thanks to their earlier association with the French), the cars still have their steering wheels mounted on the right side of the car instead of on the left. 2) The main canal in town has the same kind of white Christmas tree lights dangling down near the water that I had first seen at the lake near the Old Quarter in Hanoi. Very pretty at night. 3) Cambodia is a poorer country than Thailand and there are a lot more beggars and street children hawking the usual stuff: (e.g. knock-off versions of the Lonely Planet travel books, pirated DVDs and audio CDs, etc.) Obviously, the western Farangs (foreigners) totally stand out and, consequently, are immediately targeted. The kids are notoriously persistent in looking for your business and, as they did when I was in Shianouckville and Phnom Penh in the south, they quickly resort to guilt-tripping you if you don't buy from them. And, if they discover that you've bought something from one of their friends, then the gloves really come off. However, I've found that if you make it a kind of game and do a lot of smiling, you can usually get them to move on pretty quickly. 3) Around 4-5 P.M. every afternoon, there are tens of thousands of birds that rise up and flock above the city. It looked like a scene out of "The Birds." From the ground, they actually look like large bats, but I'm quite sure that they're not. Unfortunately, none of the locals that I asked on the street could tell me what they are. Quite an amazing sight.
This morning, I set my alarm for 4:30 A.M. I had arranged to have a tuk-tuk driver pick me up at the hotel at 5 A.M. to drive me out to the temples to see the sunrise behind Angkor Wat. It was truly breathtaking and everyone was moved by the experience. I had a quick breakfast at one of the many little open-air restaurants that have grown up around all of the temples to provide food and drink and souveniers to the busloads of tourists. There are many different temples that comprise Angkor and they're spread out over a lot of area. The temples are all linked by a recently-paved road that has been cut through the Cambodian jungle. It's impossible to imagine putting together such magnificent structures a thousand years ago without the use of modern machinery. The stone blocks are immense and were all fitted together with great precision. The bas-relief carvings on the walls are the work of master artisans. The most famous of the temples are, of course, Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom...the latter of which served as a backdrop for Angelie Jolie's "Tomb Raider." One of the expat Brits that I had met shared some stories of the production company when they had stayed at his hotel during the filming. More later...

Leaving Thailand...

2006-05-18T00:09:00.000-07:00

On my last morning in Pattaya, I was approached by several street vendors who were selling boot-legged DVD copies of Mission Impossible III for two bucks. Amazingly, they also had preview copies of the Da Vinci Code available for the same price. Incredibly, that movie hasn't even opened yet, and it's already been ripped off! Hollywood has a right to be complaining.
A quick observation at the Bangkok airport: You could easily walk for five hundred feet or more without seeing any place to toss your trash. Very strange in such a modern airport.
In Cambodia: Getting through immigration at the airport in Siem Reap was faster than it had been when I first entered the country down in Phnom Penh about seven weeks ago. I checked into a hotel that had been recommended by Grant and Cathy, the honeymooning couple that I had hung out with in Hanoi. Last night, I saw an hour-long shadow puppet show put on by some local performers and shared dinner with three folks from Melbourne who were attending a conference in Phnom Penh. Today, I went over to finally check out the magnificent Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom. The former is the largest religious buildling in the world. I was surprised to discover that the buildings at Angkor actually blended Hinduism and Buddhism. There were many impressive sculptures and wall murals of both Buddha and the Hindu gods. All this time, I had thought that the entire focus of the place was strictly Buddhist. I'm sure that there will be other surprises.
When I first visited the Taj Mahal in 1988, I became acutely aware that pictures can never fully capture the immense beauty of that structure. I had that same reminder today when I visited Angkor Wat. It's so overwhelming that it truly takes your breath away. I plan to get up very early tomorrow so that I can experience the sun rising behind the temples. From what others have been telling me, it's supposed to be unforgettable. More later...

Playing in Pattaya...

2006-05-14T22:36:00.000-07:00

While I was still in Bangkok on Saturday, I re-visited the major attractions that I had first seen back in 1988: the Grand Palace, Wat Phra (home to the Emerald Buddha) and Wat Pho which houses the world's largest reclining Buddha...about 150 feet in length with ornate designs of inlaid mother-of-pearl on the soles of his feet. Truly extraordinary and every visitor to Bangkok ought to put these attractions high on their list of places to visit. Bangkok is a city of opposites. For example,islands of brazen sexuality co-exist next door to Buddhist wats (temples). But the Thais have a great sense of humor, too. For example, two of the restaurants in Bangkok are "Eat Me" and "Cabbages and Condoms." Yes, after you eat at the latter place, they actually give you a free condom!
On Sunday, I checked out of my hotel and caught a van down to Pattaya...the infamous playground for adults about two hours south of Bangkok. Pattaya has been developing as a tourist area for more than 40 years. Now, it's become a haven for expats from the UK, Oz, NZ and the US who have taken up with Thai wives. They operate the myriad of go-go bars and restaurants that innundate this beach resort in order to cater to the hoards of westerners who are willing to pump millions of Baht into the local economy. As you might suspect, Pattaya is the home to, quite literally, many thousands of "working girls" who are available to service the male tourists...short term, for a night/week/month or however long you want. Everything is negotiable here. At night after 9 P.M., the hundreds of open bars are filled with noisy customers and hustling girls. Naturally, there's a lot of drinking, red lights, drinking, loud music, drinking, eating, drinking, etc. etc.. Amid all of the activity and chaos, however, there's also a lot of negotiating going on, too. With all of the people walking down the the well-known "Walking Street" (an area of about a half a mile that's shut off to vehicular traffic every night after 8 P.M.), it becomes a celebration of barely-contained craziness. Inside the go-go bars, several dozen girls (18-25) dance for hours around poles to pulse-pounding music (lots of rap) and in various stages of undress. Often they're completely nude. Sometimes they eagerly simulate sexual intercourse with each other or even oral sex using bananas, etc. Last night, (Sunday) I went bar-hopping with two guys from India and Belgium that I had met in the van coming down from Bangkok. They had both been to Pattaya before and were happy to introduce me to their favorite places of iniquity. For example, the Thai humor about sexuality includes the opportunity to sit at a mirrored bar table a foot away from a young dancer (in go-go boots with 3-inch soles) who is dressed only in a tiny wrap-around waitband and with no panties. Since she's dancing on a mirror, the view looking down is as interesting as is the view looking up. It's all done with great fun and laughter and everyone seems to be having a great time reveling in this blatant and in-your-face kind of sexuality. Paradoxically, outside some of these establishments are the usual "spirit houses" with burning incense, candles etc. In Thailand, sexuality and spirituality are not at all incompatible. I'll be in Pattaya until Wednesday when I take a van back to the airport in Bangkok for the flight to Cambodia to finally see Angkor Wat. After Pattaya, it'll be going from one extreme to the other. More later...

Down to Bangkok...

2006-05-11T22:16:00.000-07:00

After spending a delightful last evening in Chiang Mai with Tom and Barbara, I flew down to Bangkok on Wednesday morning. Although I had spent five days here back in 1988, I could immediately notice the increase in traffic, air pollution and the numerous cranes sprouting all over the city that were putting up more high-rise buildings. Unlike how it was in 1988, Bangkok now has tollways, elevated trains and even subways. However, with the increase of vehicular traffic, the streets during rush hour are still often paralyzed in gridlock. It's often faster to walk which is what I mostly did. Things are surprisingly more expensive here than they were in Chiang Mai or Chiang Rai. For example, a foot massage in Bangkok will cost you about 250 Baht (about twice what I paid up north). As expected, there are a lot of "working girls" in Bangkok....especially in the tourist places like down in the infamous Patpong Road area. Now, however, Patpong is a lot more commercialized than it was back in 1988. They've erected many shops down the center of the street that sell the usual "touristy" stuff: lots of sexually suggestive T-shirts, sandals, shirts, pirated DVDs and CDs, and, of course, foods and drink of every description. Ironically, right next to the major sex-bars in Patpong, there are many shops here that sell statues of Buddha and other eastern deities. As the tourists walk along through the area, the touts in front of the bars present them with a written "menu" of what they will see inside the bar. As you might expect, the descriptions on these "menus" of what takes place during the shows inside are both graphic and definitely XXX-rated. Beer on Patpong is also about twice as expensive as it is up north. Most of the "working girls" (about 18-28 years old ) have come from small towns and villages around Thailand and they're expected to send a good portion of their money back to their families to support them. Some other observations around Bangkok: 1) When you purchase a ticket to see a movie, you actually have to reserve a particular seat in the theatre. Even though there may be only a few people at the showing, you are still expected to sit in your assigned seat. 2) Although they show the latest American movies for about US$2.50 (I just saw MI-3 with Thai subtitles), they still make you pay 2 Baht for toilet paper in the bathroom. 3) Speaking of bathrooms, most of the places that I've been staying at do not have a specific shower area. Instead, there's nozzle that's attached to the wall that you use to hose yourself down. The water empties through a drain in the floor and, naturally, the bathroom has a 2-3 inch lip that keeps the water inside that area. Although they have western-style toilets, there is always a small hose and nozzle that's next to the toilet itself that you can use to wash those nether regions with water. I went down to check out the new Siam Center and the well-known MBK Building. Lots of high-end stuff for sale, and I decided to upgrade my digital camera before beginning my day-long tour of the main Bangkok attractions tomorrow. On Sunday, I'm heading down to Pattaya for further adventures. More later...

Last day in Chiang Mai...

2006-05-08T19:08:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, I got together with Tom and Barbara, the European friends that I traveled with up the Mekong from Luang Prabang, Laos, into Thailand. For the last few months, they've been renting an absolutely charming place not too far from the Chiang Mai Market. After having a drink in their front yard, we walked over to the well-known Sunday Market that materializes every late Sunday afternoon. Although the tourist map indicates that it's only held on one street, the market actually spills on over into many side streets and alleys. Included in the myriad of items that are offered for sale are a wide variety of foods and drinks which are frequently prepared on the spot to suit your taste. (Naturally, edible worms and larvae are also on display.) This street market also boasts numerous local musicians singing and playing guitars, harmonicas, violins and, of course, some of the more traditional Thai instruments. I even saw someone playing something that looked like a hammer dulcimer that could have been bought in our own West Virginia. This Sunday street fair is very popular with locals and tourists alike, and I saw many new items and foods that I hadn't seen at some of the other fairs that I've wandered through. After sharing a few beers and watching the hoards of people stream on by the street in front of us, Tom and Barbara took me over to the popular Riverside Restaurant. As the name implies, this very cool place is located on the riverfront and the building is, I'm guessing, about 200' x 100'. Most of the walls have been removed so there is a feeling of openness and spaciousness to the whole place. People sit at large picnic-like tables and could choose from an extensive menu that even includes fresh sushi. They had an excellent 10-piece band that played and sang both western and Thai music. The ambiance was excellent and we all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves for several hours. After that, we took the same tuk-tuk back to my place and dropped me off. We planned on getting together at 6 P.M. on Monday for dinner at their place. When I awoke on Monday, I had to find a local bank, print out some things from the Internet and buy a new book. I just finished "The Lovely Bones" and was lucky to find an old copy of Dan Brown's "Digital Fortress." The weather began to cloud over by 4 P.M., and I found myself hoping that my dinner with Tom and Barbara wouldn't be rained out. I started walking in the general direction of their house and hoped that I could find it before the sky opened up. Unfortunately, I only got to the Chaing Mai Market and all hell broke loose. Lots of thunder and lightning and torrential rain. I had brought along my cell phone and called Tom to re-assess the situation. Since we were planning on a garden dinner, we decided to postpone our get-together until Tuesday night. I'm scheduled to take a 10:40 A.M. flight down to Bangkok tomorrow morning. New Plans: After hanging arond Bangkok and Pataya, I'll fly back to Cambodia to see Siem Reap (Angkor Wat) and then, 4-5 days later, take a slow boat down the Mekong to Phnom Penh. Sometime around the 25th, I'm planning to fly south to Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia, and maybe down to Singapore. After that, quien sabe? More later...

In Chiang Mai...

2006-05-06T19:05:00.000-07:00

The excellent road from Chiang Rai to Chiang Mai zig-zags through the jungle-covered mountains separating the two cities. To make it as comfortable as possible, I decided to take a "VIP" bus. The seats are as wide and spacious as are the seats in first class on a plane. There were two TVs up front showing "Rush Hour" and the attendants handed out sandwiches and water to the passengers. Very pleasant and worth the extra Baht. Although I had stayed four days in Chiang Mai in 1988, I was not prepared for the tremendous growth that the city has gone through in the last 18 years. As expected, there are lots of western tourists here...particularly hanging around the well-known Night Bazaar. As before, Chiang Mai still has a few streets that are lined with bars (often bathed in red lights) that house an over-abundance of "bar girls" whose main purpose is to encourage the tourists to buy more drinks and/or to arrange for extracurricular activites later in the night. (As they say, everything here is negotiable.) I've had informative conversations with several ex-pats (mostly Brits and Aussies) who would eagerly introduce me to their much younger Thai wives...mostly half their age. (e.g. 71 vs. 33) It seems that, in order to own property in Thailand as a foreigner, you have to route it through a Thai national. Oftentimes, these guys would marry some young Thai girl, purchase a bar/restaurant and change their whole lifestyle. Yesterday, I took a tour out to one of the local hill tribes to check out their wares. It's too bad that I'm not into shopping because you could purchase some amazing stuff there for a lot less money than you'd spend at the Night Bazaar. After the village, we went up to the famous Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep Rajvoravihara. You had your choice of taking an incline elevator to the top of the hill or trudging up the 306 steps. The staircase to the top is flanked by two long Nagas (dragons) who undulate down both side railings from the top. With their mouths always open, they display powerful teeth and a blazing red tongue that sticks out. This Wat is certainly one of the most impressive that I've visited. With a commanding view of the city of Chiang Mai...some 4000 feet below...the Wat is a popular place with visitors and locals alike. The main Stupa Pagoda is inlaid with gold leaf, and the surrounding walkway boasts hundreds of golden statues of the Buddha in a variety of positions. (i.e. sitting, standing, reclining, etc.) Naturally, we all had to take off our shoes before entering the "sanctum-sanctorum." Since the Buddha evidently doesn't like to see kneecaps, any visitor wearing shorts had to also rent baggy pants to pull up over their spiritually-offensive cut-offs. Definitely not a photo opportunity: in pink baggy pants, I looked more like a demented MC Hammer. (Somewhere, I'm sure, the Buddha was laughing.)
Later that afternoon, after walking through the Saturday street market (which was much like the street markets in Luang Probang), I finally made contact with Tom and Barbara, my new friends that I had met on the boat going up the Mekong last weekend. T & B have been living in Chiang Mai for some time, and we plan to get together at 4 P.M. today (Sunday) The weather remains clear and warm. As it stands now, I'm planning to leave for Bangkok on Wednesday. More later...

Last day in Chiang Rai...

2006-05-03T20:41:00.000-07:00

Some big changes: After discussing it with my publisher in India, Mohan Nair, we both came to the conclusion that we need to postpone the book tour around India until the cooler months. We had intended to begin the country-wide tour on June 1st but, as you might suspect, the temperatures in India in June are pretty brutal. (For example, New Delhi was 108 degrees about a week ago.) On top of that, Mohan's distributors want the books to be in the bookstores for a full three months prior to beginning any publicity tour. Since I was planning to return to California by late June, I wouldn't be able to give the tour the time that it certainly deserved. Consequently, Mohan and I are planning to meet at the massive Frankfurt Book Fair in early October, and then to fly together to New Delhi to finally begin the 2-month tour. By that time, the new editions will be fully distributed throughout India, South Africa, Bangladesh, Pakistan, the Maldives, Nepal and other southeast Asia countries. These new editions will also be sold in Australia and New Zealand, and I hope to be able to promote the books throughout those two countries early next year. By October, of course, the weather in India will be much more pleasant.
I walked down to the Chiang Rai Night Market near the bus station last night. Unlike the street market in Luang Prabang where they, quite literally, spread their products out on the sidewalk, most of the sellers here have fixed stalls where they can display their wares. This market also has an open central square where you can order food and drink and be entertained by some local singers and dancers. If you're willing to spend the time, you can get some amazing bargains. We're about five miles due south of the exact center of the infamous "Golden Triangle"...the meeting point of Thailand, Myanmar and Laos which, historically, was at the very heart of the opium trade. I'm taking the early bus to Chiang Mai tomorrow morning. "Plan-A" is to hang around there for 3-4 days before eventually drifting south to Bangkok. Now that I don't have to return to India by June 1st, I'm considering other places to visit before returning to California. Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia are three possibilities that I'm considering, but who knows how things will eventually play out? Stay tuned for further adventures! More later....

Around Chiang Rai...

2006-05-02T20:16:00.000-07:00

I'm staying at a laid-back place in Chiang Rai called the Chat House. Lots of western travelers, good food and a very mellow ambiance. Yesterday, I took an all-day tour with some new friends, Paul and Pascale. They're from Montreal and are traveling on to the very places that I've just been visiting. The three of us were driven on an incredibly bumpy road up into the mountains surrounding the town. After bouncing around for an hour, we finally arrived at one of the local villages and shared some tea on an open bamboo patio with a commanding view of the area. The folks in this town (around 100) have a very relaxed lifestyle raising cattle and farming on the steep slopes. Interestingly, the government supplies solar panels to each household in order to supply them with electricity. The guide explained that this was being done to protect the trees from being over-harvested by the growing populations of the hill tribes. After tea, the four of us headed down the mountain on a very rough path that was, at times, extremely slippery and strewn with sharp rocks. Unfortunately, Paul and I had only brought our flip-flops because we were not expecting such a challenging trek. Consequently, it was a fairly dangerous 2.5 hour trek down the mountain, and I was lucky to have slipped only a few times. At the bottom, we had a fantastic lunch at a local house and were all happy to climb into the truck which, by that time, had been driven down the mountain by one of the villagers. Then we went to the elephant park and had a chance to ride on these magnificent beasts. Paul and Pascale shared one elephant while I had another all to myself. Since they gave us umbrellas to protect us from the blazing sun, I felt like I was in a scene out of "Passage to India." Naturally, of course, their trainer was also perched on the elephant's head and would often sing to the animal as we plodded along towards the nearby Wok River. Once at the water's edge, the elephants waded into the swift current out to a depth of over five feet. They walked along in the river for about 20 minutes before finally lumbering back towards the shore and to the place where we had started from. Very memorable. Once back in the truck, we headed off into the mountains again to check out one of the waterfalls. I had thought that, by that time, the walking part of the tour was over. However, we had to trek another 15 minutes up the mountain to view the waterfall. Happily, it was very worth the effort. Finally, we drove to a local outdoor spa that had a hot pool about three feet deep and approximately 75 feet x 30 feet. We all were delighted to soak our weary bodies for about 30 minutes before heading back to the Chat House. The weather remains clear and hot. I'll be staying here tonight and, perhaps,won't be heading down to Chiang Mai until Friday to hookup with Thomas and Barbara, the folks that I had met on the boat trip from Luang Prabang. More later...

In northern Thailand...

2006-05-01T01:50:00.000-07:00

The 2-day boat trip up the Mekong River was stunningly beautiful. Although the boat as about 100 feet long, there were only five passengers: Phillip and Elizabeth (who live and work in Tokyo) and Tom and Barbara (who live full-time in Chiang Mai....a town in northern Thailand that I'll be visiting in a few days. The boat that I took upriver from Luang Prabang went through some fairly remote areas, and, at times, we only saw a few very small villages every hour or so. The rest of the time, the mountains and the unpenetrable Laotian jungle right came down to the river. During the monsoons, (which are coming fairly soon) the river is at least 25 feet higher than it is right now. Since most of the people who live along the river are fisherman, it's really impossible to overstate the importance of this river to the life of these villages. When the Mekong is low (as it is now) the locals are able to position nets on bamboo poles and fix them to the exposed craggy rocks. They're trying to catch these huge catfish that are swimming upstream to spawn in the north. Some of these fish are more than 12 feet in length and, because they're so highly valued, catching one can bring instant wealth to the successful fisherman. The crew of seven served us excellent food on the boat and were quite attentive. The five western passengers spent the hours chatting, reading or even perching ourselves on the bow of the boat and, seemingly, flying over the water like the "King of the World." Quite magical...especially with my iPod adding a new dimension to the experience. In the afternnoon, however, we encounted some rain showers that, I suspect, had been kicked up by Cyclone Mala...a Category-4 hurricane that was slowly moving up the Bay of Bengal towards Mynamar (Burma) to the west of us. When we reached the halfway point on Saturday night, we pulled in for the night and had dinner at an incredibly beautiful lodge perched high on the mountainside overlooking the Mekong. We each had private bungalows and were directed to be sure to sleep under the mosquito netting that was hanging above the bed. This area, the host explained, had many mosquitoes that carried the malaria virus. Indeed, the insect life that showed up after the night descended upon us was something out of a science-fiction movie. Lots of creepy-crawlies all over the place. After some enlightening conversations, all of us happily retreated behind our mosquito netting until the morning. Because the water in the river had dropped so much, however, we had to transfer our stuff to a smaller boat in the morning in order to continue to our final destination. The Mekong is filled with amazingly strange currents that appear to upwell from beneath the muddy surface and which create eddies and whirlpools. Every so often, the the captain had to maneuver the boat through narrow, white-water passages between jagged rocks which were not more than 10 feet from the sides of the boat. Very cool, indeed. In the last hour, the staff told us that Thailand was now on the left side of the river and Lao was on the right. When we finally arrived, we had to, naturally, pull into the Laotian side first to go through immigration. Happily, they didn't charge us an exit fee like they do in Cambodia and Vietnam. After we all got through, we jumped into a small boat to cross the Mekong for a last time to go through immigration in Thailand where we were all given 30-day visas. Tom and Barbara got a ride to their home in Chiang Mai while Philip, Elizabeth and I spent the night at the Bamboo Riverside Hotel....a very laid-back Guest house in Chiang Khong with a commanding view of the river and of the Laotian town on the opposite bank. After a great conversation about life and its meaning that evening, we called it a day. Monday, May 1st is a legal holiday here and so a lot of businesses are closed. However, the buses were running, and I caught one over to Chiang Rai (not to be confused with Chiang Mai). I plan to stay here for a few days and then to get a bus down to Chiang Mai to, possibly, hook up again with Tom and Barbara. Now that I'm in Thailand, I'll have to get used to traffic driving on the left again. (As you may remember, they drive on the right over in Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos.) Meanwhile, the exchange rate over here is one US dollar to about 38 Thai Baht. More later...

Last day in Luang Prabang...

2006-04-27T20:23:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I ran into Steffan, the young German fellow that I had met earlier in the week, and we spent some time together talking to some of the monks at the local wats. These seven young teenage boys (mostly 16 and 17) all became novice monks at around 15, but will not be considered to be actual monks until they are 20 years old. (Evidently, they have to sign up for a five year commitment.) At that time, they can decide if they want to continue in that life style or return to their family. They were all very friendly and seemed extremely happy to practice their English skills with Steffan and I. One of them invited us to come to another wat at the other end of town at 5:30 in the evening to observe the rituals and chanting that they were required to do twice a day. I walked down to the wat at 5:30 and quickly found myself engaged in another spirited conversation with an 18-year old novice monk. He stated that his parents were poor farmers in northern Laos, and that, as a novice monk, he was allowed to see them for only a few days a year. He said that his father earned about US$1.50 a day. Surprisingly, they were allowed to smoke, but they had to avoid all alcohol and drugs and any physical contact with women. (According to him, mothers were OK to touch but hugging sisters was forbidden.) This morning (Friday), I rented a bike (all day for a buck) to pedal around the back streets of the city that I hadn't yet explored. The street running along the Mekong River is mostly shaded and lined with Guest Houses on one side and open-air patios with tables and chairs on the river side of the street. The kitchens are located in the Guest Houses, and they serve excellent food and drink to those who are sitting across the stree on their patio. All of the patios are about thirty feet wide and are perched at the edge of a 70 foot cliff which drops down to the Mekong. Very picturesque. At night, many of them are decorated with colorful lights. Today, (Friday) I'll do a bit more shopping, and then put together a box of stuff to send back to California. Tomorrow, I'm being picked up at 6:40 A.M. in order to catch the slow boat up the Mekong River into Thailand. More later...

Kicking back in Luang Prabang...

2006-04-25T20:49:00.000-07:00

Yesterday afternoon (Tuesday) I took the second half of the tour that I had started on Monday. This time, the van picked me up at the hotel and we drove about 30 minutes out to a local waterfall. Although it is still officially dry season, the waterfall was still very impressive. The water in the pools leading up to the main falls was an incredible shade of shimmering green. The area actually consisted of several falls with the largest fall at the top. Along the way, there were several deep pools that you could use for a swim. At the main falls...which crashed about 70 feet over a cliff to a pool...I decided to brave the swift water and wind and move in the turbulent water along the side of the pool to an area behind the fall itself. Very cool, indeed. Later that evening, I hooked up with a German IT guy named Steffan who was just completeing a four week holiday, and another fellow from Canada (Luke) who had just completed his contract teaching English in Mynamar. My friend Fiona went off on an elephant trek for a few days and we may have dinner together again tomorrow night. This morning, I bought a cardboard box and plan to buy some things at the street market tonight and ship them back to California. I also visited the National Museum which used to be the palace of the king. The walls and ceilings of the main reception room for the king were covered with colorful, mirrored mosaics depicting people fighting, worshipping and celebrating. Most of the human figures were about 8 inches high but there were also elephants, buddhas, etc. of various sizes. Each figure was carefully constructed and color coordinated. Since they were mounted on a wall that was painted blood red, the effect was really quite startling. The weather is clear and hot today. A lot of the restaurants around here list their menus in several currencies: the Lao Kip, the Thai bhat and the US dollar. Occasionally, they even list the price of the item in Euro. More later....

In Luang Prabang...

2006-04-24T19:30:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, I took a 40-minute flight from Vientiane to Luang Prabang and checked into a hotel at the far end of one of the main streets. Every night, hundreds of people descend on this area to set up a street market. They close off the street to cars and motorbikes and the local folks set up their little areas by sitting on the sidewalk and spreading out their wares on blankets and bamboo mats. There are an amazing number of items available, and they're all presented very well. I'm sure that it takes an incredible amount of energy and dedication to create...and to dismantle...this fair each and every day. The center of the street is also used by merchants so there are two separate walkways for you to wander along. The merchants even bring their own electric lights so the market stays open from around 6 to 10 P.M. every night. Since many of them are selling very similar items, you can get a lot of great bargains if you're not in too much of a hurry. (Too bad that I don't like shopping.) Yesterday, I took a 2-hour boat trip up the Mekong to the famous Buddha Caves. The boat was about 50 feet long and 6 feet wide. It held 14 passengers and a crew of two. Along the way, we pulled into one of the local villages and saw how they produced rice whiskey. When we got to the caves, we had to climb a hundred feet up to the cave itself. Inside are about 2500 ancient statues of Buddha...some several feet high while others that are placed into the nooks and crannies of the cave walls might be only an inch high. There is also an upper Buddha cave but it takes some effort to climb the steps to check out. On the way back to town, the boat stopped at another village...this one specialized in making paper. When I returned, I treated myself to a 1-hour foot massage from one of the local massage parlors. Excellent! Massage is very inexpensive in Laos and the quality of their work is certainly equal to...if not better than..any massage that I've received in the States. Laos gives you a lot of bang for your tourist buck. You can get a single room with A/C, cable TV, shower and free breakfast for about $1O-15. Three full meals a day will probably set you back about $1O-12. A large Lao Beer (which, by the way, is quite good), costs a buck and a one hour full-body massage will set you back another US$3. You could live quite comfortably here for around US$25-30 a day. The tour yesterday (at a cost of US$10) was actually divided into two parts. In the morning, we went to the villages and the Buddha cave and, in the afternoon, the same tour then went out to a local waterfall for swimming and kicking back. I decided, however, that I would break the tour into two separate days, and so I plan to go to do the waterfall part this afternoon. As I was walking along the street a few days ago, I ran into a couple from Germany that had been with me on my boat trip out to Ha Long Bay in Vietnam. Yesterday, I was spotted by Fiona...the engineer from Ireland...who I had shared dinner with back in Vientiane. We had another dinner together and, since she's doing the cave-waterfall tour today, we might see each other again this afternoon. On Saturday, I'm leaving Luang Prabang on a 2-day slow boat up the Mekong. We'll be stopping at some other local river villages and checking out some of their caves, too. After that "Plan A" is to take a 3-hour bus trip to Chiang Rai. More later...

Around Vientiane...

2006-04-21T21:57:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I hired a tuk-tuk to take me out to a place called Buddha Park. It's an area on the banks of the Mekong about 25 K north of the city. The park itself is a collection of very old stone statues of Buddha, cobras, dragons and some of the demi-gods and deities that are described in Buddhist literature. A particularly impressive statue is a reclining Buddha about (I'm guessing) 100 feet in length and over 40 feet high. There were several other statures that towered over the others. Wandering around these weathered and beautifully-carved edifices was quite an amazing experience. They even had one large ball-shaped dome...perhaps fifty feet high...that you could enter by squeezing through an open stone mouth. Once inside, you could climb to the top floor through very narrow passages and then circle that level. Inside the dome are numerous stone statues that represent, I was told later, the various level of hell. As you finally descend, floor by floor, you end up at the lowest level with stone skulls and people being tormented by demons. I tried, unsuccessfully, to find a description in the guide book and only learned about it from the hotel. It's well worth the trip so, if you ever get to Vientiane, be sure to see the Buddha Park. Tomorrow is Sunday and I've booked a 40-minute flight up to Luang Prabang for a few days. Today, I've visited the Cultural Hall and the Revolution Museum and, at 8 P.M. tonight, I'm going to dinner with a delightful Irish fellow named Graham. Some general impressions around Vientiane: 1) As it is around Indonesia, many of the houses and business have small "spirit houses" that they maintain near their front door. Sometimes, these small houses are on the ground but, more often, they're mounted on a platform that is supported by a stone pillar about 4 feet high. On the flat area, (sometimes as large as 4' x 4'), they then erect what resembles a miniature temple or wat that is supposed to honor the spirits. Flowers, incense, fruit, etc. are placed on the platform as gifts. I understand that, if you add to the size of your house, you also are expected to add an addition to the spirit house as well. 2) As it was in Hanoi, the folks in Vientiane also have a special area in which to practice their aerobics every evening. It's all quite voluntary, of course, and the physically-challenging movements are all performed with great enthusiasm. 3) The sidewalks in Vientiane are sometimes very uneven, and it's not uncommon to see gaping holes in them that seemingly appear out of nowhere. Some of these holes, in fact, are several feet across and over a foot deep so, if you're not paying full attention, it's all too easy to take a serious fall. None of these hazards, of course, are marked so you really have to walk carefully. I remember that I had experienced that same kind of pedestrian hazard when I was walking the streets of Bali many years ago. 4) The restaurants in southeast asia don't give you a lot of napkins to use during your meals. For example, at the restaurant in my hotel this morning, I was given one small square of tissue...about 8" x 8 "...that was so thin I could, quite literally, read my newspaper through it. More later...

In Vientiane, Laos...

2006-04-20T04:00:00.000-07:00

After the frenetic energy on the streets of Hanoi, Vientiane is quite laid back. Yes, there are the usual omni-present motorbikes, of course, but not nearly as many as are zipping through the streets of Hanoi and HCM City. Also, there's a noticeable lack of horn-honking. More and more westerners have found out about this little haven in Laos as evidenced by the many hotels that cater to travelers. Vientiane lies on the banks of the Mekong and is the capitol of the country. It has enough wats (Buddhist temples) to sastisfy anybody's taste for the exotic. A number of Buddhist monks pass down the river-front street by my hotel every morning around 6 A.M., and you have an opportunity at that time to offer them alms. The currency in Laos is the Kip, and it takes 10,000 of them to equal one US dollar. As it was in Vietnam, you can eat three good meals a day for US$10-12. Actually, I've been told, Vientiane is a little more expensive than the other places that I'll be visiting in the country. Part of the excitement of traveling is the joy of having spontaneous conversations with other folks who are also out on the road. Last night was no exception. In the same restaurant/bar last night, I connected first with a very interesting fellow from Canada named Jillian (who looked a lot like Saddam). After he left, a young woman named Fiona (who works as a mechanical engineer in Ireland) enjoyed another full hour of delightful sharing about life, trips and philosophy. This afternoon, as I was visiting about six of the wats, I hooked up with a married couple from Melbourne. As much as I enjoy traveling to see new places, a major draw for me really lies in these fascinating conversations that I get to have with people from all over the world. Very cool, indeed. Well, it's off to dinner now. More later as it unfolds...

Last day in Vietnam...

2006-04-18T05:46:00.000-07:00

Today, I met my friend, Tuan, by the central lake (its name is actually Hoan Kiern), and we went on his motorbike over to a small pond several miles away where there are visible remnants of a downed B-52 bomber still sticking up out of the water...tires and all. There is a stone memorial marking the event and, surprisingly, the pond that the wreckage sits in is only about 150 feet square. Tuan explained that the entire area had changed considerably and had been rebuilt several times since the plane had gone down some 40 years ago. We also went over to Truc Bach Lake which sits in the middle of Hanoi and was the actual site where they captured Senator John McCain back in 1967. I finally heard from the newlyweds, Grant and Cathy, (the Brits that I had first met going down the Mekong from Phnom Penh almost two weeks ago). We had a great lunch together and shared our adventures over the past 10 days. Grant called me later at the hotel to give me a few tips on where to stay in Vientiene, Laos. I had dinner tonight (and last night, actually,) at the City View Restaurant that overlooks the Hoan Kiern Lake at the south end of the Old Quarter. The lake itself is rectangular and appears to be about a half a mile long and a quarter of a mile wide. There are two small islands in the lake...both of which have temples. Around the lake are trees whose branches hang out over the water. At night, about a dozen of these trees around the lake are ablaze with thousands of tiny white Christmas tree bulbs which dangle quite close to the water. There is also an arched pedestrian bridge over to the larger of the two islands, and it's lit up with red lights which reflect brilliantly off the water. The entire effect is very stunning. I took a bicycle rickshaw back to the hotel and began to pack up for my trip to Laos. More later...

Relaxing by the lake...

2006-04-17T01:53:00.000-07:00

I had breakfast at the Kangaroo Cafe, a very western little place just a half a block from the central lake. After that, I found my way over to the infamous Hoa Lo Prison...better known to the American pilots who were kept there during the war as the "Hanoi Hilton." The prison has actually been around since 1896 and, over the years, was used to house thousands of patriots, revolutionary fighters and Americans between that time and the the mid-70's. Between 1964 and 1973, the prison's inmates included Douglas "Pete" Peterson, America's first Ambassador to Vietnam, and, of course, the well-known U.S. Senator from Arizona, John McCain. In fact, along with his picture, the museum still displays McCain's flight suit, parachute and other survival equipment that he was using on that date back in 1967. Most of the original prison was demolished in 1993 to make way for an apartment complex but they are still preserving the southeastern corner of the structure as a memorial to those terrible days and to the thousands of tortured people who passed through the facility...especially during the occupation by the French. After the tour, I found a large bookstore and bought a few book in English that I could wrap myself around for a while back in my room. As I was walking by the lake again and heading back to my hotel, I ran into Tuan, the Vietnamese student that I had had lunch with a few days ago. We continued our converstion, and he graciously invited me for some black tea at one of the nearby stalls. Excellent stuff. We plan to meet at 10 A.M. tomorrow for breakfast. He's going to take me to see the remains of a downed B-52 bomber that's also being preserved as a war memorial. Some more quick impressions around the town: 1) It's not uncommon to see someone driving their motorbike the wrong way on a one-way street...and/or with the lights off at night. 2) In the Old Quarter (which absolutely everyone should check out if they ever make it to Hanoi), the sidewalks are not really used very much by pedestrians. Instead, they're mostly filled with parked motorbikes and those small tables and chairs where whole families are cooking and eating their meals. Also, of course, many of the shops simple spill their wares out onto the sidewalk and take up any remaining space. The shops...all next to each other... open directly onto the sidewalk and are closed at night by some kind of sliding metal garage door. Because of the limited sidewalk space, the street itself has to be shared equally by pedestrians, buses, trucks, cars and the ever-present motorbikes. 3) Even though the vans and cars are all equipped with seat belts, absolutely no one bothers to wear them. (In India, too.) 4) It's not uncommon at all to see three full-sized adults sandwiched together on a small motorbike or two adults and two children all squished together...zipping in and out of the traffic. Naturally, of course, no one is ever wearing a helmet. Obviously dangerous, but, amazingly, I've yet to see anything even remotely resembling an accident. Everyone seems really quite adept at handling the chaos-of-the-street. I'm kicking back tonight and getting ready to enjoy my last full day in Hanoi tomorrow before I head off to Laos early Wednesday morning. More later...

A day in Hoa Lu...

2006-04-16T03:36:00.000-07:00

After the overnight train from Sapa arrived at 6 A.M. on Friday, I hitched a ride on a motorbike back to the hotel. After I changed clothes and grabbed a quick breakfast, it was off on another full day tour. This time, I wanted to check out the temples around the ancient capital called Hoa Lu several hours outside of Hanoi. After driving on fairly-decent roads for 50 miles (and with green rice paddies stretching out for miles in both directions,) we arrived at Hoa Lu. Along the way, we saw many cemetaries in the middle of these fields...some with elaborate structures and tombstones...that commemorated the ancestors of the folks who lived in the nearby settlements. The geography around the ancient temple of Hoa Lu reminded me a lot of Ha Long Bay where I had visited earlier in the week. In fact, the formations of the odd-shaped mountains...sheer limestone cliffs rising vertically from a flat plain... looked almost exactly like Ha Long Bay... but this time, of course, without the wall-to-wall water. After we had lunch, our little group of ten tourists paired up and were directed into small boats powered by one or two local people who rowed, alternately, with their hands or even vigorously pedaling the oars with their feet. The 3 hour trip was truly magical and other-worldly. The stream/river...about 50 feet wide...snaked its way among these towering rock formations that were easily several hundred feet high. Rice paddies had been planted on each side of the river and went all the way to the walls of the vertical formations that loomed over us. All you could hear was the swoosh of the paddles and the water gently lapping at the sides of the boat. Twenty minutes later, we saw that the river seemingly disappeared into the side of the cliff, and, within a few minutes, our boat went into the darkness. At times, the roof of the limestone cave was within a few feet of the water but the guides expertly directed our boats safely through without difficulty. Within a few minutes, we could see that the river emerged again into another open area. Our boats were about 25 feet apart from each other and, clearly, everyone was mesmerized by the unexpected beauty of what we were experiencing. Fifteen minutes later, we went into yet another cave...this one shorter than the first. Finally, we went into yet a third cave and emerged into a smaller area which had a number of boats filled with some of the locals who were selling everything from T-shirts to beer. We landed and took some incredible pictures of the distinctive sawtooth, rock formations at the far end of the valley. After that, my boat "partner" and I, a delightful fellow from Singapore named Decland, returned to our boat to begin the 1.5 hour trip back to our point of origin. There were a lot of boats on the river, but it never seemed to be over crowded. I imagine, though, that as the word gets out about this unforgettable ride through the rice fields and rocks, this area will change for the worse. I'm so glad that I saw it now. LATER: When I was looking for a place to have dinner back in Hanoi, (by the way, the locals here spell it "Ha Noi"), I was amazed to see over a hundred people...mostly women....quite enthusiastically doing aerobics in a park it 8:30 at night. They all knew the moves and followed the instructions that were piped to them over the loudspeakers. At dinner, I started a conversation with a free-lance journalist from Rotterdam who stated that he often worked for the Economist magazine in London. David has been covering the southeast Asia beat for many years and had recently spent over 8 years living in Cambodia. A very good connection. SUNDAY: I haven't yet heard from my honeymooning friends that I had met down in HCM City (Cathy and Grant from the UK), so I'm not sure if they're flying into Hanoi on Tuesday or not. Anyway, I'm leaving the evening open for a final dinner together if it works out. Meanwhile, I booked a flight from Hanoi to Laos for early Wednesday morning. I can get a 15 day visa at the border and plan to use up all of the days. When I was reading my knock-off copy of the Lonely Planet book on Laos by the central lake near the Old Quarter, I was approached, at three different times, by Vietnamse students in their late teens who wanted to practice their English on me. Everyone is very friendly, but the never-ending motorbike traffic rushing through the streets here is truly horrific. Much too crowded and way too noisy. Some of the smaller bikes have "cleverly" installed huge horns that might be expected to be on trucks or buses in order, I suppose, to create an illusion for those in front of them that they're driving a much larger vehicle and should be given the right of way. According to one of the teenagers, they even have separate batteries to power their 110 decibel blasters. Believe me, these horns can absolutely rattle your bones. I'm sure that the older folks around here dearly miss the quieter old days some 30-40 years ago when only bicycles ruled these same streets. Oh well. C'est la vie. Everything changes and everything ends. More later as it unfolds...

Raining in Sapa...

2006-04-13T23:02:00.000-07:00

I was awakened this morning to incredible thunder and lightning. From my hotel window, I could see the fog and mists coursing into the valley between the peaks that surround Sapa. It was all very visually stunning and rather surreal. The rains were very intense at times and the lighting and thunder almost occurred simultaneously. I hadn't brought a rain jacket with me when I had came up from Hanoi and so I was totally unprepared for taking my scheduled six hour trek through the mountains today. Anyway, I decided to hang around this fascinating little town for the afternoon before taking the overnight train back to Hanoi later on this eveing. Since the elvation here at Sapa is about 5000 feet, this has been the first time that I've been outside AND cool at the same time in over a month. Very pleasant. Last night, on my way back to the hotel, I could even see my breath. Sapa is much quieter and decidedly less hectic and intense than is Hanoi. However, as it is down the hill, some of the motorbikes don't bother to put on their headlights at night so you still have to be careful. Some more impressions of this country: 1) As it is in both India and Cambodia, all of the westerners drink only bottled water (unless they're staying or eating at some high-end hotel.) 2) many of the middle-class houses in both Hanoi and in HCM City follow the same general design: they're simple cement rectangular structures (only 12 or 15 feet in width and up to maybe 40 feet in length). The family business is often on the first floor. However, these structures are, in a sense, "replicated" up to five stories high. Many of the floors have with ornate balconies with pillared railings and other decorations. Some of them are used as separate one-room apartments on each floor while others are used entirely by a multi-generational family. Most of the time, only the front of the house is painted while the flat and unadorned sides are kept the dull grey of cement. 3) In HCM City, many of the shops sell bottles of a powerful (I've heard) yellow-colored liquor. If you look closely at the bottle, however, you can see that they each contain a small snake (usually a cobra) that's coiled to strike. These small cobras (once very alive) are "arranged" so that they're biting a scorpion or an alligator that's dangling in their mouth. Very weird, and, presumably, very popular for the tourists to bring back home. More later when I get down off this mountin...

Taking the train to Sapa...

2006-04-13T03:58:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday evening, I hitched a ride on the back of a motorbike over to the train station in Hanoi to catch the overnight train up to Sapa, a beautiful and mountainous area northwest of the city. I just took a daypack and left my much- larger backpack at the hotel. The first class compartment on the train consisted of two bunkbeds, individual lights, blankets, pillows, etc. I shared the rather crowded space with two men and a woman...none of whom spoke English. No worries. By the time the train left at 10 P.M., I was kicking back with my iPod and quickly drifted off to sleep. By 6 A.M., we were pulling into the train station where the tourists get their vans and buses for the 25 mile ride up the mountain to Sapa. Many of the people in this region dress in very traditional and colorful clothes that reminded me of how the people dressed in Guatemala. Sapa is only (I think) about 20 miles from China and so the people around here look like a mixture of Vietnamese, Chinese and definitely a strong Tibetan influence. Very beautiful and dignified. According to one of the guides, the Vietnam war left this area mostly untouched as it apparently had no strategic value back then. Sapa was bigger than I had expected it to be and there are many tourists hotels and cafes around with full access to the internet. Unlike Hanoi, the kids up here easily approach the western tourists and try to persuade them to buy some of their handiwork. Many of the kids wanted to practice their English on me and some of them pulled me over to the nearest internet cafe to have me help them write better English to some of the westerners that had come through the town earlier. Amazingly, many of these kids had already established email addresses through yahoo or hotmail. Most of these young girls (ages 8-14) were all dressed in a similar kind of school uniform. Their English was certainly passable and you could tell that they had spent a lot of time interacting with the tourists. Surprisingly, I saw no boys hawking stuff on the street and, when I asked the girls where they were, they indicated that the boys mostly had to stay at home working with their parents. So it seems that, around here, the boys are handling the family goats and water buffalo, while the girls are on the internet and learning English. In the afternoon, I took a 3.5 hour trek with two Kiwis and a Buddhist monk. The local guide took us down a path to a waterfall in one of the canyons. The guide said that the elevation of the town was about 1500 meters, and, although it is hot during the afternoon, the temperature drops quickly as soon as the evening mists showed up about 5 P.M. I've got an excellent corner room at the Grand View Hotel that looks out onto the green-covered peaks surrounding the town itself. Many of the hillsides around here are farmed by terracing the areas in order to make the best use of the available land. I'm going to head off on a 6-hour trek tomorrow morning and then catch the overnight train back to Hanoi. More later...

Hanging around Hanoi...

2006-04-11T18:57:00.000-07:00

On Monday, I took a tour out to Ha Long Bay to see the famous islands. This is an extraordinarily beautiful meeting of land and sea that's about 3.5 hours east of the city. On the way to the Bay, we drove through miles of rice paddies, and saw a lot of people in their traditional conical hats working alongside their water buffaloes. Ha Long Bay itself has over 2000 islands that rise almost vertically out of the ocean. Some are nothing more than a few hundred square feet while other are quite large. I'd guess that 99% of them are uninhabited because of their inaccessibility from the sea. For example, many of them have sheer rock walls and are topped with shrubbery and trees. However, there are a few unspoiled small beaches that are nestled among some of these islands. The islands are, (I'm just guessing here) about 200-300 hundred feet high. At the Bay, there are probably a hundred tour boats that are available for the travelers. For a reasonable price, you can cruise among these unique islands for as short as a few hours or stay for several days. For example, including everything (four meals, overnight on the boat, kayaking, seeing the cave, the trip to and from the Bay, etc.) was only US$80. Some people, like myself, chose to sleep on the boat while others landed in Cat Ba, a small town on one of the islands that actually boasts a 2-star hotel. It provides access to Cat Ba National Park. On the boat, the crew served us a traditional Vietnames lunch before we landed at one of the larger islands and toured a rather impressive cave. After that, we cruised to a small village and kayaked for an hour among rocks. Finally, our boat chugged into Cat Ba itself. Some of our passengers went off to the hotel while the rest of us anchored a few miles away and watched the nearly-full moon reflected off the nearby islands. A truly magical night. Surrounding Cat Ba "city" and snaking around these islands are many hundreds of floating shacks...some standing alone, some linked together..that provide housing for many many families. Traditionally, these people make their living from the sea and, obviously, spend the vast majority of their time on the water. Interestingly, some of them had TV antennas. The size of these shacks is probably around 12 X 15 feet...if that. Lots of them have one or two dogs, kids and the adults appeared to be very friendly to the visitors. This is such a unique area that I can only imagine how it will change over the next ten years as it becomes increasingly popular with the tourists. Already, there is some water polution and, of course, the ongoing exhaust from the engines of these hundred tour boats is becoming apparent. Nonetheless, if you ever make it to Hanoi, you absolutely MUST check out the beauty of Ha Long Bay. Some other impressions as I walked around the city: 1) at night, a lot of people sit on the sidewalk on small stools that are about one foot square and a foot high. Either that, or they're sitting in what appears to be under-sized plastic lawn chairs. Commonly, the people who own the shops literally cook and eat their meals right on the sidewalk very close to the never-ending rush of motorbikes, horn-honking and exhaust fumes. 2) Speaking of traffic, you have to develop nerves of steel to handle the traffic in Vietnam. Crossing the street through an unbroken stream of motorbikes, cars and buses can be very daunting. After watching the locals, you'll see that you have to bravely step out into the stream itself and, magically, the traffic accommodates your presence. They adapt to your body being in the street and simply flow around you as would water flow around a "rock" that was crossing a stream. The key is "Don't run!" If they can guage your steady progress, they will adjust their own speed and direction to avoid hitting you. 3) The electric power wires that are strung between the poles around the city are amazing. They're all twisted up and attached to the poles with little regard for either safety or order. Imagine a pole with several hundred black wires all converging together within a few feet of each other. I don't know how it all works but, apparently, it does. I'm taking a day off and mellowing out around the nearby lake here in the Old Quarter. Tonight, I'm taking an overnight train to a beautiful area northwest of Hanoi called So Pa. More later...

Good morning, Vietnam !!!

2006-04-09T05:39:00.000-07:00

Once I landed in Hanoi, I grabbed a ride in a van into the Old Quarter of town. It's a very picturesque and historic section of Hanoi with a lot of the older buldings, low-end tourist hotels and great places to eat. I got a room for US$10 with A/C, cable TV, a refrig, a telephone, a balcony, two single beds and a half a dozen pieces of ornately carved (and very heavy) mahogony furniture. I took a tour of the city on Sunday and visited Ho Chi Minh's masoleum. (He's preserved like Mao and Lenin.) Lots of guards and, of course, pictures were forbidden. We also saw the residences where he stayed when he was living in Hanoi. There's also a large museum that's worth visiting that carefully documents his rise to power. After that, we went to the "Temple of Literature" which is a series of historically-important old buildings that originally housed a 13th century university (of sorts) for the study of Confucianism and his ethical way of living in the world. Lots of statues of Chinese deities, incense, candles, etc. According to my guide, most people in the north believe in a combination of Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism. Tonight, I attended a performance of the world-famous Hanoi Water Puppets at their theatre here by the lake near the Old Quarter. This art form can be traced back to the 11th century when the farmers used it to entertain each other in the rice paddies during the monsoons. The 60 foot "stage" is really a rectangular pool of green water. Behind it, you can see a traditional gold and red pagoda with carved dragons. The puppets (people, dragons, birds, fish, water buffalo, etc.) are mounted vertically at the end of long poles which are then moved horizontally under the water by a half a dozen workers hidden behind the pagoda. The puppets can raise their arms, turn their heads and interact in surprising ways with each other. The hour-long presentation included live music and singing from the eight excellent musicians sitting to the left of the stage. They played very traditional instruments, and the music was both uplifting and haunting. According to the literature, the Hanoi Water Puppets have traveled to many other countries... including the U.S. Very unique, indeed. I'm off to Ha Long Bay tomorrow. More later...

Hanging around with Uncle Ho...

2006-04-07T23:47:00.000-07:00

Last night, Grant, Cathy and I had dinner and a few drinks on the Rooftop Garden at the Rex Hotel where we were all staying. (Newsweek magazine actually ranks it as one of the best bars in all of Asia.) My new friends flew to Hue this morning, and I'm planning to fly up to Hanoi this evening to check out the north. I only have a ten day visa so I want to see as much as I can before I have to leave next Saturday. There seems to be some issue about extending visas for both Americans and Koreans so I may have to go to Laos in seven days. I was awakened today by some militaristic-sounding music that was blaring from huge speakers in the square across the street from the hotel. Evidently, there was some early morning celebration that had taken place in front of the statue of "Uncle Ho" that graces the central position in the small park. As I walked around town an hour later, there were uniformed police and security guards everywhere. However, I sensed no hostility at all. If I smiled at someone, they invariably would smile back, too. As it was in Cambodia, the only overweight people that you see here are western tourists. This morning, I had breakfast with a group of eight ex-military guys in their 50's and 60's who had served in the Viet Nam war. They had banded together from different parts of the country to re-visit some of their old haunts on the battlefield and, they shared some of their earlier memories of the Rex Hotel itself. As it is in most developing countries, the exchange rate here is very high. In India, one US dollar is about 44.6 Rupees. In Cambodia, one US dollar was worth about 4100 Riels. However, in Viet Nam, one US dollar buys you a staggering 15,000 Viet Namese Dong. Consequently, you're always dealing with bills of 50,000 and 100,000 denominations. These larger bills, though, are definitely very cool. They're totally plastic, and they each have two clear "windows" that are actually part of the bill. One clear window is about the size of a large nail head. The other one (about 1 inch by 0.5 inches) is much larger and rather odd shaped. Very unique. Naturally, the bills sport pictures of "Uncle Ho." I'm hanging around the hotel this afternoon but will be heading off to the airport this afternoon around four. It'll be a two hour flight up to Hanoi and then a 45 minute ride by taxi into the city. More later...

Down the mighty Mekong...

2006-04-07T01:04:00.000-07:00

Instead of taking an air-conditioned bus from Phnom Penh to Ho Chi Minh City in Viet Nam, I decided to take a five hour boat trip down the Mekong River to Chou Doc. After that, I planned to get a bus or van up to the city. Our covered "speedboat" held about 20 people...most of whom were western tourists. There was a group of 10 German travelers, a couple from the UK who were traveling with their two daughters ages 9 & 5, and another young couple from the UK (Grant and Cathy) who were on their extended honeymoon. The Mekong River is very impressive, and, at times, it appeared to be at least several miles across. Before we arrived in Chou Doc, however, the boat pulled into the shore where we had to surrender our passports and go through immigration to leave Cambodia. Thirty minutes later, we got back onto the boat, traveled about a quarter of a mile, and pulled in again to the shore to be looked at by the Viet Nam authorities at their checkpoint. This time, they kept us waiting for over an hour in the blazing heat of the afternoon. I found out later that the boat captain had to bribe the Vietnamese officials in order for him to expedite our entry. It seems that we could have easily been kept there for several more hours. Once we all got back in the boat, however, we still had to travel another 30 minutes. Eventually we turned off into a narrower part of a tributary of the Mekong. As we got closer to Chou Doc, both sides of the river became lined with run-down, delapidated shanties...most of them up on stilts. Sometimes, there were single rooms that had been built on floating platforms...homes to entire families. The narrower channel was filled with motorized barges which sometimes looked like miniature arks. A lot of them used an outboard-type motor with a drive shaft up to 10-15 feet long which was angled down into the water at 45 degrees. Most of the boats had a red "face" with black eyes painted on their bow. Grant, Cathy and I decided to hook up at to share a van ride up to the city. It was almost 3 P.M. by the time we had arrived in Chou Doc and, since it was a day of travel anyway, we decided to tough it through another 5-hour van trip to Ho Chi Minh. The van ride up to the city was pretty rough. For the first half, we all got bounced around on a highway that was still under construction. Lots of bumps and dips. Two hours from HCMC, they stopped at a restaurant for dinner and we ordered a traditional Vietnamese soup. We phoned ahead for reservations at the 4-star Rex Hotel....a place where many of the foreign journalists worked during the Viet Nam war. Although the three of us were pretty exhausted by the time we arrived at the Rex(10 P.M.), we still had enough energy to have a few drinks at the Garden Terrace restaurant on the top roof. Live music and very decadent atmosphere. The next day, Grant, Cathy and I met for breakfast and became to plan our day. We first walked over to the "Reunification Palace,"...made famous at the place where the last helicopters left the rooftop when the U.S. was pulling out of Viet Nam. Some readers will remember seeing pictures of the rush at the gate back in the early 70's and the desperate look on the faces of those trying to escape before the country descended into chaos. From there, the three of us went to the War Remnants Museum and saw, as expected, a very one-sided viewpoint of their version of the war. They were many examples of captured American weapons including several jets, helicopters, small planes, rifles, machine guns, artillary, morters, etc. etc. Lots of pictures and documentation about how they were "right" and how everybody else (including the French) was "wrong." We then walked over to a famous Chinese temple pagoda and paid our respects to some of the images inside. Finally, we went to the central marketplace a few blocks from the Rex Hotel. It's a huge warehouse structure that's home to many hundreds of little booths selling absolutely everything you can impage...food, clothing, souveniers, wood carvings, shoes, luggage, flowers, etc. A paradise for those who like sensory overload. We went back to the hotel and arranged to use the gift certificate that the hotel had given us each for a massage. It's hot (over 90) and with 85% humidity. Grant and Cathy are leaving tomorrow morning but we'll probably hook up again when I fly up to Hanoi on Tuesday. More later...

The Killing Fields of Choeung Ek...

2006-04-05T06:02:00.000-07:00

Today, I descended into the Heart of Darkness. I caught a cab to take me to the infamous Killing Fields just south of Phnom Penh where Pol Pot tortured and killed about 17,000 men, women and children between 1975 and 1978. It was a very powerful and deeply-felt experience that moved me profoundly. The centerpiece of the area was a pagoda-style structure that housed, on more than a dozen stacked wooden platforms, the skulls of about 8900 victims that they had retrieved from the dozens of pits nearby. The guide said that the many pits had been over 10 meters deep and that they were still recovering bones and fragments from the entire area. Indeed, as we walked along the paths between the pits, you could easily see articles of weathered clothing and human bones that were totally visible because they were, quite literally, just sticking up out of the dirt. The guide even showed me several teeth that were lying on the path beneath our feet. One of the trees had a sign indicating that it was the place where the heads of young children were beaten to death against the trunk. In fact, in order to save on bullets, most of the people in the Killing Fields were struck by a blow on the back of their necks as they knelt...blindfolded and with their hands tied behind them...by the edge of the pit. After a blow with a metal rod or farm tool, their throat was cut and they were thrown over the edge. According to the guide, some of them were still alive and,of course, were simply buried that way. Along the walk between the pits, we saw many small piles of bones. Although they were from many countries (including some Americans), a lot of the victims were the intelligensia and their families. Pol Pot wanted only two classes: the working class (for the factories) and the peasants (for the fields). Before they were sent to the Choeung Ek, most of these unfortunates had spent 2-3 months at S-21...the notorious interrogation center about halfway between the fields and downtown Phnom Penh. The buildings had originally been used as a high school, but became the main center where men, women and children were kept chained in three floors of cells as small as 4 X 8. One building was used totally as the torture center and you can walk from "classroom to classroom" and still see the original metal beds where the victims were shackled and tortured by beating, electricity, drowning, dismemberment, rape and everything else that lurks in the Shadow. One room contained a collection of all of the original torture instruments that were used on the people who passed through S-21. The Khmer Rouge were very methodical about what they were doing. Each of the victims was photographed and specific data about their background was carefully recorded. There are at least a half a dozen rooms that are filled with panels of haunting black and white pictures of men, women and children staring blankly back at the lens of the camera. Some of the people were obviously dead, and their bodies showed signs of extreme torture.
On the way back to town, our cab was pulled over by some uniformed police who had set up a makeshift (and quite arbitrary) check point on the main road. According to my driver, most of the cops here are corrupt. It seems that they would randomly direct cars to pull over at their whim and then they'd try to shake down the driver for a few thousand riels..or whatever. Luckily, they didn't bother with me and were only interested in leaning on the driver.
Tomorrow, I'm taking a boat to the Viet Nam border and then hopping on a bus to take me into HCMC itself. More later...

On the riverfront in Phnom Penh...

2006-04-04T08:41:00.000-07:00

I checked out of the House of Malibu on Serendipity Beach this morning and caught the bus for Phnom Penh. Happily, a very friendly fellow named Mark (who usually drives a taxi in Seattle), was sitting next to me and so the 4+ hours passed quickly. Once the bus stopped in the city, as expected, every westerner was immediately surrounded by at least 4 drivers who wanted to take them to the hotels that give them kickbacks. I opted to use a moto, and we got to the California 2 Guesthouse in a few minutes. I had written them an email the night before but, unfortunately, they hadn't read any of their mail by the time I arrived. No problem. I was re-directed to the Cozyna Hotel a few doors down and found a very nice A/C room, complete with TV and a refrig...for only US$20. My room faces the river and is quite comfortable. It even has its own balcony overlooking the street.
I had a beer at one of the many local bistros along the street. A young girl about ten (who was lugging around at least 25 books in a basket) zeroed in on me and asked me in fairly broken English to check out all of the titles. Amazingly, I was able to buy the 2006 edition of the Lonely Planet book on Laos for only US$6.00. What a deal! Later, however, she saw me again when I was kicking back on the quay wall by the river a few blocks away and she quickly brought her sisters and cousins (who were also selling books) over to say hello. Her older brother told me that all of the newer Lonely Planet books were, essentially, pirated knock-offs that the kids were buying for only a buck and then selling to the tourists for about US$6. Evidently, there's a flourishing underground printing industry thats able to copy other books so well that you can't tell the difference between the copy and the original. The kids practiced their English on me for a while and, since they all looked pretty hungry, I decided to spring for some food at their favorite Khmer diner. None of them had eaten since the morning and so they quickly wolfed down the very excellent food'that they ordered. These kids are very young (about 4-13) and are totally unsupervised for many daylight hours and well as on into the evening. After they ate, they all wanted to take me across the street to watch the locals dance in the open park. The Cambodian music certainly isn't rock, but everyone seemed to enjoy listening to it and singing along to the lyrics. Kids as young as six and some older folks all danced in a big circle counter-clockwise around the big amplifier in the center. The whole atmosphere was very festive and celebratory.
The Cambodian people are physically very beautiful, and they're blessed with dazzling white smiles and open, friendly hearts. As expected, I'm running into more western tourists up here in the city, but (even over in India), I have yet to see even ONE Afro-American tourist anywhere in my travels. For some reason, they just don't show up over here. Tomorrow, I'm going to see if I can arrange for a day-long tour of the city and, in the afternoon, check out the infamous Killing Fields.
More later...

On the road again...

2006-04-02T22:30:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm going to be packing it in and moving on. I've decided to take the 9 A.M. 4-hour bus trip back to Phnom Penh tomorrow. I'll hang around in that city for a few days and then find some way of getting over to Viet Nam. I was able to get my visa for US$33 from the Viet Nam Consulate here in Sihanoukville in only 15 minutes. Just mellowing out today on the beach and reading my Lonely Planet book on Southeast Asia in order to better anticipate at least some of what will show up on the next leg of the journey. As it stands now, I think that I'll be in Viet Nam for about ten days and then heading on over to Laos for the next few weeks. After that, I can re-enter Cambodia again by taking a flight south from Laos to Siem Reap in order to check out the magnificent Angkor Wat. Stay tuned....

Swimming to Cambodia...

2006-04-01T03:10:00.000-08:00

On Friday morning, I signed up to take a full-day tour of three of the local islands that are visible from both Seredipity and Occheuteal beaches. (Only US$15) Naturally, all of the tourists were westerners, and I shared the day with several more Brits and a young American originally from Texas. He's been teaching English in Japan for six months and was on holiday. After being in the boat for 45 minutes, we anchored off the first island and all jumped in the water to snorkel the reef. After an hour or so, we left for another island and pulled up onto the sand of a long white beach with some nearby unpainted shacks that were actually for rent. There was even a full, open-aired bar that everything was centered around and which catered to visitors from the mainland. It was run by a friendly fellow named Mitch who hailed from San Francisco. The half dozen rooms for rent on the beach cost US$10 a night and were simply 12 X 12 enclosed platforms on raised poles. No TV, A/C. screens, lights, etc. etc. All very primitive and with one nearby communal W/C for one and all. There were, of course, the ubiqutous German tourists sunning themselves when we arrived but there were only about 25 people on the entire beach...including the eight from our boat. We had a simple lunch beneath the palm trees consisting of BBQ baracuda, coleslaw and lots of sliced fruits. After lunch, we all hiked through the jungle to the other side of the island, where, believe it or not, there was yet another full, open-aired bar awaiting us. However, there were only a few people over on this side and there were no rooms to rent. This beach looked directly out on the Gulf of Thailand and so there were no picturesque islands to look at as there are on the other side. After lunch, we stopped at the third island to snorkel another reef. We returned to Occheuteal beach about 4 P.M. I hiked back to Seredipity and took a shower in my room. About 8 P.M., I walked back to Occheuteal beach and checked out some of the restaurants that sit near the water. I finally decided on one that had great sounding menu and about a dozen tables (3'X 2') lined up about six feet from the lapping water. All of the tables, of course, had candles and the service was very fast. I had an absolutely fantastic chicken kabob with a bowl of rice and two long island iced teas that set me back a whooping eight bucks. All of the restaurants on these two beaches here have open-aired bars, western music, lots of tables next to the water, cushioned couches, candles and thousands of colored twinkling lights.

On Saturday, I signed up for a trip to go to Ream National Park for the day. Again, everyone on the tour was either from Europe or the States. The trip took about 1.5 hours down this river towards the open sea. We finally pulled up onto this pristine beach that was totally deserted. The guides made us a BBQ baracuda lunch (I guess that's what all of the tours get) and the obligatory serving of cole slaw and sliced fruits. After splashing around in the water some more and checking out the unusual rock formations, we all trecked 1.5 hours through the jungle to the other side of the island where our boat was scheduled to meet us. Just before we arrived, however, we passed through a small village of about 100 people who lived in shacks that were built up on stilts. (A lot of the homes in the country are built off of the ground in order to take advantage of any cooling breezes that might be able to circulate beneather the structure. Also, the empty space provides shade for the house animals and for the hammocks that everyone seems to sleep in at night. About 40% of the population in Cambodia is under 15 years of age. The guide told me that, in this one village alone, 60 of the people were children with most families having five kids. We peeked in their "schoolhouse" which was stark, barren and unlit. In spite of living in conditions that many Americans would find appalling, Cambodians are certainly some of the friendliest people that I've come across in all of my travels. Lots of warm smiles and laughter. More later...

On the beach in Cambodia...

2006-03-29T07:39:00.000-08:00

After Mohan and Giriji drove me to the airport on Tuesday evening, I caught the short flight over to Colombo, Sri Lanka, and hung around at their very modern airport for the 2:20 A.M. flight up to Bangkok and beyond. Sri Lankan airlines is really quite nice and they feed you a full meal..even on short flights. On the 3.5 hour trip to Bangkok, they even gave us a choice of about 8 movies to pick from plus many other audio and game channels. This plane also showed the takeoff and landing from a camera that was mounted beneath the plane. Very cool. We arrived at 6:30 A.M. at the huge and very modern international terminal in Bangkok. Very glitzy with hundreds of duty-free shops to spend your money in. After another hour, I took a Thai Airline flight to Phnom Penh.
Getting my Cambodian visa was quite interesting. You have to fill out this one-page sheet of the ususal information. However, it's then passed through (I'm not kidding) eight other official-looking military people, sitting side by side, who take their turn looking it over and signing off. Finally, it arrives at the last guy in the row who collects the $20 tourist visa for a one-month stay.
By the time I got outside of the terminal, I was getting pretty tired and so I didn't spend too much time bargaining for a taxi to take me to Serendipity Beach...about a 3.5 hour ride on a fairly decent road that had been built by the Americans. Although I saw pockets of trash alongside the road on our trip to the beach, I'd guess that Cambodia looked about 90% cleaner than India. The people are all very friendly and my driver spoke enough English to give me a tour. At the beach, I located the House of Malibu and checked in to an air-conditioned room about 50 feet from the water's edge. All along the beach in both directions are little beachside restaurant-bars with tables beneath thatched roofs and stretching several levels down onto the sand. Everything is open-aired so there's a great feeling of expansiveness. Lots of Europeans (Germans, Austrians and, of course, Brits) and only a sprinkling of Americans. I met some friendly Brits and had a few beers to mellow out. Immediately, as the new arrival, I was surrounded by 4-5 young girls who were hawking their bracelet-making abilities. Very persistent so I had them make one for each of my grandchildren. By 5 P.M., I was ready to sleep for a few hours. I awoke at 10 and decided to walk down to the water. The weather is warm, humid and clear. When the sun goes down, all of the little restaurants on the beach have colored lights and candles on all of the tables. Very beautiful in a fantasyland sort of way. Lots of folks at night partake in the local ganja weed so everyone is pretty mellow. Today (Thursday) I treated myself to an excellent massage on the beach...along with a pedicure and a manicure...all for US$8. Beer is only a buck here and you can get a full meal for around US$3.50. I'm taking a taxi over the main part of town this afternoon to check it out. More as it unfolds...

Off to Cambodia...

2006-03-27T22:41:00.000-08:00

Yesterday (which was Monday), I took a ferry boat over to Fort Cochin, and, as expected, we passed by the Taj Malabar Resort where we had all eaten dinner the day before. As it turned out, the second largest cruise ship in the world...the well-known QE-2 (owned by Cunard)...was also docked in the Cochin harbor for the day. After our ferry pulled next the dock, I headed south from the wharf and quickly managed to hook up with some of the English-speaking Europeans from the cruise ship who were on a land tour of the area around "Jew Town." Since they were all thoroughly white, I managed to blend right on in and simply "piggy-backed" onto the tour that they were taking of the Dutch Palace and the Jewish Synagogue. It was extremely hot and humid and everyone from the ship looked decidedly uncomfortable and even distressed. Obviously, these folks had been used to staying in their steel cocoon of relative comfort and safety. After being driven around town in ultra-modern (and very air-conditioned) buses that served to both isolate and insulate them from the smells, sounds and vibrations that are experienced down here at street level, they were periodically released from their mini-mothership in order to bargain with the locals for their wares and to, I suppose, then be able to accurately say to their friends back in London that they had, indeed, "been to southern India." (OK, OK. Enough of this rambling pseudo-cynicism. Let's move on.) Tonight I'm pulling an all-nighter. After first flying to Sri Lanka (Colombo), I have to handle a 3.5 hour wait at the airport before finally getting on the plane for Bangkok at 2:30 A.M. After that, there's another flight over to Cambodia, and if all goes as expected, I'll be landing in Phnom Penh around 9:30 A.M. local time. At that point, I'll be 15 hours aread of California time. See you next on Serendipity Beach in Sihanoukville, Cambodia.

Marking time in Cochin...

2006-03-26T21:34:00.000-08:00

Today is Monday, the 27th, and I'm all set to fly to Cambodia tomorrow night. Last Saturday, Mohan and his wife, Giuriji, and I were invited to attend the formal opening of a friend's new dancing school. We were considered to be honored guests and both Mohan and Giriji were on the printed program and expected to address the crowd of about 50 attendees. We were all seated at a special table across the front of the room. Quite unexpectedly, though, the Host also asked me to address the crowd. Since there was a large statue of Dancing Shiva in the middle of the floor, I used it as a metaphor for how to live out our life: fully participating in the dance-of-life every single moment by resisting the temptation to assume that its purpose was to arrive at the final postion of the dancer, himself. In short, the purpose of "The Dance" is in the dancing of it. Anyway, it seemed to work and everyone applauded politely. After a few more speeches, we listened for an hour to three excellent musicians (violin, tabla and a female singer) who sang some traditional south Indian music. Giriji said that it was common for the dancing teacher to have his house on the ground floor and then to use the flat roof above it as a dance studio. The tiled area itself (about 25' X 50') was covered with a slanting metal roof that had been mounted above the dance floor with about an 8 feet open space all of the way around for ventilation. Very practical.
On Sunday, they gave their cooks a day off so we all went out for lunch buffet at a local hotel. In the evening, however, we went for a dinner and drinks at the Taj Malabar...a well-established old world charm resort on Willingdon Island with a spectacular view of the harbor. It had been built in 1935 and was, I'm sure, a favorite haunt of the long-gone Raj. Very proper and appropriately stuffy with a full bar, wood paneled ceilings, and lots of white European faces. The music, both piped and live, however, was decidedly American. (e.g. Simon & Garfunkel and Jethro Tull) They have lavish parties on the lawn in front of the dining area, and we saw some women performing traditional Indian dances for some of the folks out near the water. When the sun goes down around here, I've noticed that, for a few minutes, there is an extraordinary yellow light that seems to make everything glow and shimmer. It's almost as if a special filter had been placed on the sun to make it all very mystical. But, who knows? Maybe it's just from the pollution. Still, it's really quite exceptional, and I wish that I could capture it on film. More later...

Planning the tour...

2006-03-24T05:06:00.000-08:00

Another fairly lazy day. We had a brief thunderstorm yesterday evening but, according to my publisher, Mohan, the real monsoons won't begin hitting this area until around June 1st before continuing on to the north. Mohan and his wife, Giriji, are putting together a fairly extensive book-signing tour that's shaping up to include talks at several dozen cities throughout India...including as many as six bookstores in the New Delhi area alone. Once this tour gets launched, we're all going to be pretty busy.
However, since they're not quite ready with the books yet, I've now scheduled myself to go on a roundtrip (and open-ended flight) from Cochin to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on Tuesday evening. I was going to fly out of Chennai (Madras) but I've decided to forego the long 13.5 hour drive across the south with my friends and, instead, to move directly into the other phase of the purpose of my journey over here. i.e. a side-trip to Cambodia. Since I can't get a direct flight to Cambodia from Cochin, I'll have to switch planes in Bangkok. In order to get a fantastic roundtrip rate, (thanks to Mohan's connections with a local travel agency), I'm also being routed through Colombo on Sri Lanka. More later as it unfolds...

Hanging out in Cochin...

2006-03-22T21:40:00.000-08:00

Well, for the past few days, I've been hanging out at the offices of my publisher in hot (and humid) Cochin. Mohan and Giriji are still busily working on the final touches of my books and have wisely decided to wait to begin the big tour until they have all four of them printed and ready for distribution. Evidently, the turn-around period is remarkably short over here and, once they are ready, all of the books can be printed up in about a week. Amazingly!
I'm still staying at Mohan's Guest House, and we're all taking our meals together. Two nights ago, I used the A/C instead of the overhead fan in my bedroom and, as a consequence, the mosquitoes decided to feast on my arms and face. Unlike the mosquitoes that I'm familiar with in the states, these little guys over here are more into the stealth-mode and they don't make any buzzing sound when they're flying around.
I took an afternoon off a few days ago and took an auto-bus (sometimes called a tuk-tuk) on a 30-minute ride over to Fort Cochin which was built out on the point on the beach. As expected, I've seen relatively few tourists here from the west. Cochin is not exactly a favorite or familiar stop on the "grand tour of India" so the Europeans and Americans who end up visiting the area are few and far between. Once I got to the Fort Cochin, I felt like a good walk and so I hoofed it along the beach for a while and talked briefly to a few young Indians who wanted to know where I had come from. As soon as I said California, they all smiled and said "Ahhhnold." I finally took an auto-bus to "Jew Town." (Yes, that really is its official name.) Lots of great old Indian and Tibetan stuff to buy, and so, as you might expect, there were some tourists buses parked nearby. After hanging out for a while, (and being more into "looking" than "shopping"), I decided to see if I could find my way back to the bridge that we had crossed on our way over here this morning. I made it a point to smile at everyone and, invariably, they all smiled back. Everyone is very friendly here although you need to smile first. However, most of the folks on the street here don't speak English, so I was glad that I brought the business card of my publishers so that I could tell the driver where I wanted to go.
Although India is very noisy (everyone in a vehicle is on their horn a good percentage of the time...mostly to avoid hitting someone or being hit) and extremely dirty (for some reason, there is very little awareness or social concern about the presence of trash absolutely everywhere), this country still pulsates with a robustness of the life force. The energy here is almost palpable. Interestingly, although relatively few people seem to speak English, many of the billboards and signs along the highways are written in that language.
Reality check: Just to put things in perspective, the average middle-class salary in India begins at about 300 rupees a day. That translates into about US$7.50 a day. Hundreds of millions of people survive here on much less than that.
Change of plans: Because of the delays in getting all of the books finally in print, we've all decided that it would be best for me to do the Cambodia part of my trip first before we begin the official tour in India. So, as it stands now, Mohan, Giriji and I will be driving to Chennei (Madras), Tiru and Pondicherry within the next few days to visit their friend who recently lost his wife. I plan to then fly out of Chennei to Penom Penh (undoubtedly, via Bangkok) and to mellow out for a while at one of the southern beaches. Naturally, I'm also planning to go north to visit Angkor Wat, the largest religious building in the entire world. Mohan will stay in touch with me via email while I'm in Cambodia and will let me know when they are ready to formally launch the tour. As soon as we're ready to go, I'll then fly back to India and hook up with their group. More later...

Going south...

2006-03-20T05:25:00.000-08:00

My publisher, Mohan Nair, his wife, Giriji, and I left New Delhi Sunday morning and flew on Kingfisher Airlines to Cochin with a quick stopover in Bangalore. I wanted to mention the name of the airlines because the last time that I was in India (1988), I had to fly Indian Airlines. I don't know how they are now, but they were pretty bare-bones back then. Kingfisher, however, is definitely a quality airline, and I would heartily recommend it to anyone flying to different cities around India. They're only about 10 months old and are doing quite well.
For the last few weeks, Mohan and Giriji have been escorting some of their authors around India on book-promotion tours and, in fact, had just finished up with author Steven Harrison (from Boulder) the day before they had picked me up in New Delhi. We were supposed to have all gotten together in New Delhi on the 15th (I had met Steven before in Ojai), but, unfortunately, my plane from L.A. had been delayed by 24 hours so I didn't actually land in Delhi until Thursday, March 16th (my own birthday).
Right now, I'm writing this from my publisher's office in the town (city?) of Cochin which is on the west coast of the country a few hours or so north of the southern tip of India. Cochin is the home of Editions India, the folks who will be publishing my books. As it stands now, they'll be distributing them throughout most of the countries in south Asia as well as in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. I'm staying in Mohan's Guest house which is a few blocks away from his own house. Last night, Mohan and Giriji learned that the wife of a close friend had unexpectedly died shortly after childbirth, and so it looks like we're going to be traveling to Pondicherry to pay our respects (about 13.5 hours directly east by car) sometime in the next few days. Road trip??
Since I'm planning to stay in India until around June 1st, there's no real pressure to begin the tour until all of my books are fully available from the printer. Meanwhile, I'm helping them out by writing some copy for their new catalog. They've contracted with some amazing writers in this area.
The food that Mohan's cook prepares for us every day is very typical of this region and quite good. They have their driver, a personal manager and a cook all living at the Guest house.
Although my own cell phone has international capability, Mohan's doesn't so. although I can call him (if I want to spend $2.29 a minute), he can't call me. He solved that problem by buying another cell phone for me to use while I'm in India. He and his wife have both been incredibly supportive. Stay tuned to find out what happens next...

Into the cauldron...

2006-03-17T05:23:00.000-08:00

As it was when I visited this country before in 1988, India impacts and assaults your senses at every level. I'm in New Delhi until Sunday and it still has the same intensity of noises and smells that had impressed me some 18 years ago. Very viceral. We're 13.5 hours ahead of California. Much more later.

Leaving for India...and beyond

2006-03-13T20:16:00.000-08:00

March 13, 2006 Well, my flight to New Delhi was delayed 24 hours because of a malfunctioning plane. Oh well, c'est la vie . Who can say why things happen as they do? My publisher in India was notified about the change of plans, and I'm now scheduled to land in New Delhi on the 16th, which happens to be my birthday...if you believe in that sort of thing.